catch up cash

Nigeria 2023: Tinubu, Atiku flex financial muscles as Peter Obi seeks funding

By Eniola Akinkuotu

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Posted on November 8, 2022 12:08

 © File photo of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu attending an APC meeting. (Kola Sulaimon / AFP)
File photo of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu attending an APC meeting. (Kola Sulaimon / AFP)

It costs upwards of a billion dollars to successfully run a presidential election in Africa’s largest country even though Nigerian law says the spending limit is N5bn ($11.2m). With about 100 days to the poll, Lagos godfather Bola Tinubu and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar are definitely not holding back their financial muscles. Will Peter Obi, an outsider, be able to catch up?

Moved by the flooding in several parts of the country that displaced about 1.4 million Nigerians and killed over 600 others, Labour Party candidate Peter Obi announced that he would be suspending his campaign to visit victims. He also called on all other presidential hopefuls to suspend their campaigns for humanitarian reasons.

Taking the lead, Obi threw down the gauntlet by making a donation of N5m ($11, 286) to an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Benue State. He also visited his home state of Anambra where he presented some cartons of noodles, a few sacks of rice, some loaves of bread, a small generator and a grinding machine to victims and posted the photograph on Twitter.

This elicited jokes from supporters of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

“A former governor and presidential candidate donating a grinding

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