The African Democratic Congress has alleged that the All Progressives Congress and the team of President Muhammadu Buhari are offering opposition parties N50 million to compromise them ahead of the 2019 election.
The National Chairman of the ADC, Ralphs Nwosu, made the allegation on Wednesday in his welcome address at a meeting with a team of officials of the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute at the party’s headquarters in Abuja.
Nwosu told NDI and IRI team that Nigeria’s democracy has made appreciable progress since 1999, noting that the country had had a successful transition at the expiration of tenure every four years.
He said the decision of former President Goodluck Jonathan to accept defeat and congratulate his opponent now President, Muhammadu Buhari, even before the final announcement of the presidential election results in 2015 was “a hallmark performance” of the successes recorded within the period.
Nwosu said: “However, the events of the last three years seem to be undermining all the gains.
“In terms of elections, the bye-election in Rivers State turned the territory to a police state and a battlefield until the government of President Buhari, working with relevant agencies of the state, got the ‘hacked’ result they wanted.
“Despite the poverty in the land, the ruling party and government have unlimited budget for bribing the electorate, electoral bodies and causing mischief.
“The APC and President Buhari’s team are presently sharing N50 million to members of the opposition parties in an attempt to cause crises within the parties.
“I heard that they have upped that of ADC to N100 million, but they will fail.”
Nwosu said the ADC, which had been adopted by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo-led coalition and other groups, has a membership of 6.5 million persons.
The party chairman also told his guests that the ADC was a grassroots party which had registered about 1.2 million fee-paying members within the last three months with close to 10 million persons waiting to be registered.
The head of the visiting team, Christopher Fomunyoh, who is also the Regional Director, Central and West Africa of the NDI, said the team was in Nigeria to assess Nigeria’s level of preparedness for the 2019 elections.
Fomunyoh said: “We are currently visiting Nigeria to assess the level of preparations for the 2019 elections.
“It is our tradition to meet with all major stakeholders focusing on the electoral process. We also came to see what opportunities exist for future engagements.”