The All Progressives Congress has blasted former Vice President Atiku Abubakar over his allegation that the Bola Tinubu’s administration paid a N50m bribe to opposition parties to weaken their leadership ahead of the 2027 election.
Atiku made the allegation while speaking as a panellist at a national conference on strengthening democracy in Nigeria in Abuja on Monday.
The conference was organised by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development, the Centre for Democracy and Development, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, the Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa, and the National Peace Committee.
The former VP warned that the country was on the verge of losing its hard-earned democracy if it continued on the current trajectory.
“I want to make this public. I met with leaders of a political party in the opposition, and they openly admitted that this government gives them N50 million each,” Atiku disclosed.
Reacting, the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Felix Morka, in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, described Atiku’s allegation as ‘simply bogus and laughable.’
According to him, peddling rumours and unsubstantiated allegations were signs of desperation by the former VP.
“Atiku’s allegation that the APC-led administration was paying out N50m to some opposition figures is simply bogus and laughable. Atiku knows that his political desperation is responsible for the PDP’s catastrophic disintegration.
“Peddling rumours and unsubstantiated allegations should be beneath anyone in the standing of an elder statesman, a former Vice President and a serial contestant for the exalted office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he stated.
The APC spokesman further criticised Atiku, his counterpart in the Labour Party, Peter Obi and a former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, over allegation that the ruling party may have been sponsoring the crisis in the opposition amid talks of a coalition.
He said, “The bizarre suggestion by opposition figures like Atiku, Peter Obi, and recently, aggrieved leaders like Mallam Nasir El-Rufai that our great party may be complicit in the internal corrosion of opposition parties is pitiful, and only an incompetent alibi for their crass failure to manage their affairs.
“They cannot govern their parties but tout their ability to govern Africa’s most populous country. We cannot possibly forget how Atiku’s PDP heavy-handedly captured most South-West states and vowed to remain in power for 60 years.
“It was in those same years that Atiku’s former boss and then President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, infamously described the election as a ‘do or die affair’ in a desperate attempt to annex Lagos. We deserve better than petty politicking and alarmist rhetoric from an elder statesman.”
