•Says President unleashed horror on Ekiti in the name of democracy
Yemi Adedeji, Abuja
Ralphs Nwosu, the National Chairman of African Democratic Congress (ADC), has alleged that All Progressive Congress (APC) and President Muhammadu Buhari’s team are presently sharing N50 million to members of opposition parties in an attempt to cause crisis within the parties
Nwosu said he also learnt that the ruling party has upped that of ADC to N100 million, but assured that they they would fail, saying nothing would stop the party from producing the next president.
The ADC Chairman made the allegations in Abuja when he received a delegation from National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) at the party’s headquarters in Abuja.
He said since 1999, democracy in Nigeria has advanced as the country has witnessed successful transition at tenure expiration every four years, adding that the hallmark performance of President Goodluck Jonathan in accepting defeat in 2015 and congratulating the opposition candidate remains a clear testimony.
Nwosu however lamented that the events of the last 3years seem to be undermining all the gains.
He stated: “In terms of elections, the bye-election in Rivers State turned the territory to a police state and a battle field until the govemment of President Buhari working with relevant agencies of state got the ‘hacked’ result they wanted.
“I am aware that your teams visited Ekiti State and witnessed the horror that the APC government inflicted on the state in the name of democracy. Despite the poverty in the land, the ruling party and government have unlimited budget for bribing electorates, electoral bodies, and causing mischief.
The APC and President Buhari team are presently sharing N50 million to members of opposition parties in an attempt to cause crisis within the parties. I heard that they have upped that of ADC to N100 million But they will fail,” he noted.
Christopher Fomunyoh, the NDI Regional Director for Central and West Africa, while speaking on behalf of the delegation, said the visit was the first of two international assessment that the two organisations would embarked on before this year is over.
He said they have had meetings with a lot of Nigerian stakeholders, civil society representatives, opinion leaders, and members of various professional organisations, stressing that the assessment would help them figure out how to be helpful and to bring the expertise to work as the country prepare for 2019 general elections.
“It is our tradition when we conduct this pre-election assessment missions, just as we do when we conduct international observation missions, we meet with all major stakeholders because our work is done in a non-partisan fashion, focusing on the process and looking for ways our organisations can help people of Nigeria across party lines, including INEC which has the responsibility to conduct the polls, to make sure that they can conduct the polls in a way that is meaningful and produce election that Nigerians can be proud of.”
Fomunyoh said that the team started its mission by making a short trip to Ekiti State to observe how the INEC will proceed with implementing some of the new guidelines that it has adopted since the 2015 national elections.
He noted: “Ekiti state gave us the opportunity to watch some phases of the process and to interact with the people of Ekiti state.”
When asked to give his assessment about the Ekiti guber poll, he said; “we are right in the middle of assessment, so we are still in the information gathering stage, our delegation will be issuing statements of our findings before we leave Nigeria, we are doing that on Friday at the Hilton hotel. We would have finished with all our meetings and the entire assessment process by that time so we will be able to better respond to your questions.”