The ruling All Progressives Congress said on Monday that the PDP was responsible for the rumor that the APC had set aside N6.5 trillion to rig the general election of 2023.
This information was revealed in a document that had been leaked and was going around on social media with the caption “leaked APC 2023 Election Document.”
According to the allegation, the ruling party intended to bribe judges, INEC officials, and polling place security personnel with an amount so enormous that it would account for roughly half of the entire country’s 2022 budget.
The APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, responded to the claim by calling the leaked document a fabrication of the opposition.
Morka clarified the matter in a statement released on Monday at the party’s secretariat in Abuja.
The statement read, “The attention of the All Progressives Congress has been drawn to a document in circulation described as “leaked APC 2023 Election Document.”
“Mischievously, the document alleged that our party has voted a whopping N6.5 trillion to fund schemes aimed at swaying the Nigerian electorate to support and vote for the party and its presidential candidate in 2023. Ridiculously, too, the document alleged that obscene amounts of money have been voted for outright vote-buying; compromising INEC staff; security operatives; judicial officers and other officials.
“The APC wishes to place firmly on record that the document is not of the party. We neither authored nor own any such document, and it certainly did not emanate from our party.
“Indubitably, the document is the handiwork of very sick elements of the opposition PDP in a desperate quest for unmerited electoral advantage by attempting to smear our party with wrongdoing.”
In their “senseless” attempt to malign the APC, the authors of the report, according to Morka, claimed that the party planned to use nearly half of the nation’s entire 2022 budget to buy votes.
He claims that the document blatantly reveals the authors’ profound ignorance of the intricate structures and procedures involved in the acquisition and use of public funding.
“How in the world does a government operating a national budget of N17 trillion dole out N6.5 trillion to rig elections? Our party is focused on delivering the dividends of democracy to Nigerians in hope that they will reciprocate by supporting and voting for our candidates come 2023 elections.
“We are a law-abiding party and have no need to engage in any fraud and electoral malpractice suggested in that worthless document. Only a party that is a masterful looter of the national treasury such as the PDP can even imagine another capable of engaging in the kinds of atrocious acts the document suggests.
“We urge Nigerians to disregard the document as sleazy propaganda for which the PDP has gained notoriety. The APC remains committed to building an innovative system of free and credible elections as witnessed in the recently concluded Governorship elections in Ekiti state,” he stated.
