The battle for Nigeria’s 2027 elections has already begun, and the accusations are flying. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has set off a political firestorm, claiming that the Bola Tinubu-led administration is bribing opposition parties with N50 million each to weaken their leadership.
Atiku made the explosive allegation on Monday while speaking at a national conference on strengthening democracy in Abuja. According to him, opposition leaders had confided in him about receiving the funds—a claim that, if true, would expose a troubling manipulation of the country’s political landscape.
“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 declared. He warned that Nigeria’s democracy was at risk of collapse if the current trend continued.
But the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) wasted no time in firing back. In a strongly worded statement on Tuesday, APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, dismissed Atiku’s claims as “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 of his standing as a former Vice President and a serial contestant for the presidency,” Morka said.
The APC also took aim at Atiku’s allies, including Labour Party’s Peter Obi and former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, accusing them of looking for excuses to cover their own failures.
“It is pitiful that opposition figures like Atiku, Peter Obi, and recently, aggrieved leaders like Mallam Nasir El-Rufai would suggest that our great party is complicit in their internal crises. They cannot govern their own parties but claim they are capable of governing Africa’s most populous country,” Morka added.
The statement also reminded Nigerians of the past, accusing Atiku’s former party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), of heavy-handed tactics when it held power.
“We cannot forget how Atiku’s PDP captured most South-West states and vowed to rule for 60 years. It was in those same years that Atiku’s former boss, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, described elections as a ‘do-or-die affair’ in a desperate attempt to annex Lagos,” Morka said.
The exchange hints at the deepening divide ahead of 2027, where power struggles and coalition talks dominate the political scene.
