Defection: APC using money to buy off PDP – Usman Bugaje

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Usman Bugaje, a former presidential adviser and member of the House of Representatives, has claimed that the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigeria’s ruling party, is effectively using money to buy off the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He said the main reason politicians are defecting is money, but it’s also possible that opposition figures with records in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, are being threatened to do so.

The governor of Delta State, Sheriff Oborevwori, and Ifeanyi Okowa, the PDP’s 2023 running mate to Atiku Abubakar, joined the APC on Wednesday, along with members of the state’s National Assembly and State Assembly and local government chairmen, as ZINGTIE previously reported. This was the most recent significant defection.

“Well, for what I know, and I don’t claim to know everything, the APC is basically using money to buy off PDP,” Bugaje told Arise News.

“Some say a carrot and a steak. So the money is the carrot. What’s the steak? I’m not quite sure. Of course, if there are people with records in the EFCC, they may invert in them.

“They might do these kinds of things. And this has been the practice right from the time of President Obasanjo. So, this might be, but I think the essential thing is basically money.

“And for me, this is a very serious issue, and this should be the center of our conversation in politics because for as long as money is going to be the determining factor, you know, then that’s the end of democracy, and that’s the end of politics.”

Recall that the PDP responded to the defection first, through acting national chairman Umar Damagum, the party stated that they had not anticipated the large-scale defections in Delta State.

He went on to say that the next election will be between the people and the APC, not based on the number of governors in a party, and that it will be a chance to hold the ruling party accountable for the suffering the nation has endured.

Speaking further about the PDP’s response, Bugaje stated, “There has not been opposition right from the time the minister Wike did what he did. I mean, basically PDP has lost that opportunity to become an opposition party.

“Look at how members behaved in the last big issue of emergency rule, in the parliament, look at what they did when it came to the budgeting to so many other things.

“So really, there is no opposition party.”

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