Immediate-past vice-chair of the All-Progressives Congress (APC) in the North-West, Salihu Lukman, has claimed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu may have spent N100 billion to clinch the exalted seat of the presidency in the 2023 poll.
Lukman, who is the former National Vice-Chairman of the ruling APC, in a piece, titled: Resolving APCs Progressive Retrogression also alleged that the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sen. Godswill Akpabio and Dr. Tajudeen Abbas may have spent not less than N50 billion each to garner the support required to occupy their seats.
The Kaduna-born politician further claimed that APC Governorship candidates for the 2023 elections must have spent not less than N10 billion to win their elections.
He argued that the high cost of winning elections is enough to weaken the bond between elected leaders and other party leaders, which may have created the problems of accessibility to those occupying elective seats in the country.
He contended that so long as elected leaders, especially President Tinubu, are inaccessible to other party leaders, the prospect of returning APC to its founding vision of emerging as a progressive party will continue to diminish.
Lukman, who was the Director-General of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF), claimed that APC has virtually been taken over by whatever was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and all its negative values, including money politics.
Reminiscing how money politics played a key role in the emergence of President Tinubu and other public office holders, he said, amongst others: In fact, the most disturbing reality was more reflected in the case APC Presidential primary. While in 2015, we had one of the excellent models of producing a Presidential candidate in the person of former President Muhammadu Buhari who wasnt a moneybag and therefore had to rely on the generosity of fellow party leaders and well-wishers to finance the campaign for his primary election in both 2015 and 2019.
“In 2023 the reverse completely happened; as all those who aspired and contested for the APC Presidential primary, including President Tinubu, shouldered all the financial burden for their primary campaign. To that extent, it is possible that President Tinubu may have incurred not less than N50 billion to win the APC Presidential primary and emerged as the partys presidential candidate.
After incurring such huge personal expenditure with almost zero contributions from other party leaders, President Tinubu had to also shoulder almost all the cost of the 2023 Presidential election with very negligible contributions from the APC and other leaders, if at all.
Certainly, inclusive of the cost of winning the Presidential primary, winning the 2023 Presidential elections may have cost President Tinubu upward of N100 billion. By every standard, this is very outrageous and alarming.
He added that: It may have cost both Sen. Godswill Akpabio and Hon. Abbas Tajudeen nothing less than N50 billion each to win the contest for Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives.Cascading it down to Governors, it would have cost each of the APC Governorship candidates for the 2023 elections not less than 10 billion to win the elections.
What this simply means is that for any person to contemplate aspiring for President of the Federal Republic, or Governor of any State, that person must have an impossible amount of money, running into hundreds of billions. How many Nigerians can afford this from legitimate earning?
According to Lukman, So long as aspirants and candidates are required to bear all the financial burden of winning elections, the extent of being successful may not include transforming APC into a progressive party, which is the primary source of APCs electoral advantage.
It is the hope of many APC leaders and members that President Tinubu will prioritise decisions to return the party to its founding vision of becoming a progressive party. We are confident, he has everything it requires to take every necessary decision.
