APC Speaks on Claims Ministers Pay Billions to Secure Appointments

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed suggestions that ministers serving under President Bola Tinubu paid billions of naira to secure their appointments.

It insists that comments by Alwan Hassan, a spokesperson for the party’s Presidential Campaign Council, were intended to describe practices associated with previous administrations.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, made the clarification following public reactions to Hassan’s remarks during an interview on ARISE News.

Hassan had claimed that some ministers pay enormous sums to obtain government positions and later focus on recovering the money after assuming office.

The allegation generated questions about the process of appointing ministers and whether financial inducements influence access to public office.

It also raised concerns about the possible consequences for the management of public funds if appointees entered government with the expectation of recovering money allegedly spent to secure their positions.

Hassan made the controversial statement while defending Tinubu’s approach to government expenditure.

He praised the President for personally monitoring the use of public revenue and suggested that his involvement had helped address concerns about how government funds were managed.

Speaking during the television interview, Hassan said: “The way Asiwaju is hands-on on the expenditure of our revenue is fantastic and I love it. A lot of ministers pay billions and billions, and, you know, to get themselves appointed. The first thing they think of is how to recoup that money.”

His remarks quickly attracted attention because they appeared to suggest that some members of the current administration might have paid substantial sums to obtain their positions.

However, Hassan maintained that the alleged practice was not limited to the APC and had existed before the party came to power.

Reacting to the controversy on ARISE News’ Prime Time, Morka said Hassan’s comments should be understood within the historical context he intended to convey.

He argued that the statement had created room for different interpretations because it did not clearly distinguish between past administrations and the present government.

Morka said: “What he was referring to was not really about this administration, but he was speaking in historical context. What he said left a lot of ambiguity, some have suggested that he was speaking about appointments. He was clear as well when he said that what he was describing predated APC. As a citizen listening to him, I thought he was simply conflating systems. When he came back and said it predated the APC, that suggested to me that his frame of thought was really located, not in the present, but really in the past.”

The APC spokesman acknowledged that Hassan’s choice of words had contributed to the misunderstanding.

According to him, public commentators sometimes make broad statements without clearly identifying the period or administration being discussed.

He explained that a general reference to corruption in Nigeria should not automatically be interpreted as an accusation against the government currently in power.

Morka added that Hassan would ultimately have to explain his original intention, but said his subsequent conversations with the campaign spokesperson led him to understand that the remarks concerned what he described as a longstanding problem.

Morka stated: “When you are a public commentator, sometimes you generalise without really specifically drawing those lines of distinction between moments. If I say there’s corruption in Nigeria, I’m not necessarily saying that this government is corrupt. am not here to sort of overanalyse or justify comments. I think that, in due time, he alone will have to come tell what he had in his mind. But from talking to him, what I understood, after the fact, was that he was simply speaking historically, to say that ministers generally in our country have had this really terrible record of engaging in that behaviour.”

The party spokesman also questioned the financial logic behind the allegation, asking how a minister who allegedly paid billions of naira to obtain an appointment could recover such an amount within the limits of Nigeria’s budgetary system.

He said the figures involved made the claim difficult for him to accept without further clarification.

He also distinguished between lobbying for public appointments, which takes place in some countries, and the alleged practice of paying individuals with influence to secure government positions.

Morka said: “If ministers are paying billions to get appointed, how exactly, within what we know to be Nigeria’s budgetary frame, do you recoup the billions you paid to get appointed? I don’t think that is really something that, personally, I am willing to even imagine. He made a comment in historical context, as he explained it. In other democracies, lobbying for appointments is not something unusual. In the United States, there are firms that are contracted to lobby for individuals to get appointed to office. Those are usual things that happen in the background.prior to appointments.”

He added that the central concern was whether money was being exchanged for access to public office, rather than the existence of lobbying itself.

Morka said: “I think the concern here is that when lobbying becomes monetised, where people pay money to operators or to individuals with influence to procure appointments, that I think is what is really wrong.”

Despite the APC’s clarification, Hassan’s comments have left important questions unanswered.

He did not identify any minister who allegedly paid billions of naira, name anyone who received such payments or provide specific evidence to establish that the alleged transactions took place.

The claims therefore remain allegations and should not be treated as proof of wrongdoing by any particular officeholder.