APC ACCUSES PDP OF WASTING N1tr ON HATE CAMPAIGNS

The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation, has lambasted the President Goodluck Jonathan campaign organisation of lavishing N1tr of tax payers money on hate campaigns to tarnish the image of the leadership of the APC.

The campaign organisation specifically stated that the said sum was utilised on advertorials in newspapers as well as sponsorship of damaging documentaries on the APC presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari and other party leaders.

The campaign organisation through its Director of Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, at a press conference at the party’s campaign headquarters in Abuja.

According to Shehu, "A panoramic view of how much Nigeria’s resources Jonathan and PDP have laboriously and wantonly spent on print, broadcast and social media campaigns just to damage the unassailable credential of Gen Buhari’s integrity will confound any casual observer of the polity in recent times.

"An average cost of a wrap around in Tier 1 and Tier 2 newspapers in Nigeria is between N15m to N20m and the Jonathan campaign buys an average of five wrap around and front pages in a day in the last three months coupled with the hundreds of billions that have been spent on negative TV exposures on AIT, NTA and other television and radio stations across the country.

"We had expected that a President that has spent about six years in office, with the revenues more than what all governments before him had received, will run on a record of performance rather than peddling lies and hate media campaigns that are accentuating ethnic and religious tensions in the country."

The opposition party equally that President Jonathan had been dishing out N50m each to traditional rulers, most especially in the South-West and the northern parts of Nigeria.

But the ruling PDP refused the allegation, accusing the opposition party of what it termed  paranoia and desperation in its futile attempt to claim power.

Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Alhaji Abdullahi Jalo, argued that, "It is now clear that the APC has nothing else to tell Nigerians, who have made up their minds to return President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP.

"Ask them, how much is Nigeria’s budget? They should talk on issues and stop this propaganda."

Photo credit: The Punch