The campaign team of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, has opened a fundraising website to receive donations for its campaign for next year’s polls, according to new information.
WITHIN NIGERIA reports that Bayo Onanuga, the Director of Media and Publicity for the APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), has confirmed the existence of the website, claiming that Tinubu’s campaign team created it.
The donation portal is said to be called bat-ksm.com, and it will include profiles of Tinubu and his running mate, Kashim Shettima, as well as campaign videos and event press releases.
In response to the creation of the website, Onanuga told Punch that it is a “futuristic project,” which is why it is still dormant.
He advanced that the site is still inactive because Tinubu and the APC at large have yet to approve it.
Onanuga went on to say that the website cannot be activated until the presidential candidate and the party give their approval.
He went on to say that this is because Tinubu and the party must agree that they want the public to donate money to the party’s campaign before it can be activated.
He said;
It has not been activated because the account details have not been uploaded. If you click the ‘Donate’ button on the site, you will discover that it has not been activated too.
The website is dormancy state because the secretariat has not really agreed on whether they want donations from the public. It is only after such a decision is taken that we can put bank account details on the website. So it is there on the internet. It is futuristic.
Number one, the candidate has to agree whether we should receive donations. The party has to also agree. Even if the party secretariat wants donations to be raised for the campaign, they will give us an account number.
All those things you saw on the site are just futuristic buttons in case we need them. But as of now, it has not been activated yet.
Following this development, reactions have trailed the APC’s decision, particularly from some political parties, such as the Labour Party (LP), which pioneered the fundraiser website.
The APC’s fundraising website was launched just a month after the LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi, launched his own fundraising and campaign website to solicit donations from willing Nigerians.
Tai Emeka Obasi, Obi’s media aide, reacted to the development by saying it was clear his principal had set the pace for other candidates to follow ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
Obasi called Tinubu’s campaign team’s actions hypocritical, adding that he cannot blame anyone.