The All Progressives Congress, APC has accused the PDP-led government of using state-owned institutions to frustrate its campaign funding initiative.
This is in reference to the fact that NCC has mandated all telecommunication companies to refrain from using their platforms to promote any political party.
According to APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, “There seems to be an orchestrated plot to prevent us, the All Progressives Congress (APC), from using the new platforms of SMS, Ringtones and Scratch Card to raise funds for our electioneering campaign”
Earlier in the week, Governor Babatunde Fashola had unveiled 5 new campaign strategies including SMS, Caller Ring Back Tunes. scratch cards to enable Nigerians make monetary contributions to APC’s Presidential campaign.
One of the campaign initiatives required Nigerians to send the keyword “APC” to a short code “35350”. This action deducted N100 from the subscriber’s account which represented a donation to APC. This was available on all telecom networks – MTN, Glo, Etisalat, Airtel, and Visa phone – in Nigeria.
In a press conference held today, Governor Babatunde Fashola said that immediately after the party announced the launch of the platforms, NCC issued a letter to telecoms operators “not to carry political messages” thereby shutting down the SMS platform.
He added further;
“It is with very deep sadness that I address you all today, because I never expected that I will witness in Nigeria some of the very distasteful and disgraceful conduct that the Federal Government, the PDP and the President have embarked upon, by way of repression of freedoms. I mentioned the commercial nature of the transactions we had with the businesses who were partnering with us and the benefits to the economy. I also stated very clearly that these businesses had no partisan relationship but are providing professional service. I said so, in order to protect their businesses because of the increasing intolerance we were witnessing from the Jonathan and PDP Presidential campaign and some Federal Government agencies that have taken a partisan position”.
“The NCC has shut down the 35350 platform for sending N100 message to the Buhari fund raising campaign yesterday afternoon. Before it was shut down, 5400 people had contributed N100 to the Buhari campaign fund using the platform.”
The Governor promised that his party would explore all legal means to fight for its interest, but lamented the protracted JUSON strike which has crippled judicial activities.
No official statement has been made by PDP or NCC.
