EKO HOT BLOG reports that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is yet to comply with President Muhammadu Buhari’s directives to return nomination costs to candidates who withdrew during the party’s March 26 consensus National Convention, which was four months ago.
Investigations also revealed that the party owes money to individuals hired to run the congresses (from the ward to the National Convention) in advance of the general elections in 2023.
The party has also fallen behind in paying worker salaries when they are due over the past two months. Instead of being paid on the 25th of every month, June salary was paid in the middle of July, and employees didn’t get their July paycheck until last Friday.
At a meeting with eight national chairmanship candidates on March 24, President Buhari encouraged them to withdraw in favor of a consensus candidate by promising to reimburse their nomination expenses.
Each aspirant for party offices paid between N20 and N2.5 million for the expression of interest and nomination forms, depending on the office contested for. Investigations showed that the party raked in over N700 million from about 170 persons.
It was also learnt that the party generated over N3 billion from members who purchased the expression of interest and nomination forms to contest for tickets ahead if the 2023 general elections.
But despite the huge receipts, affected party members are complaining about the non-compliance with the presidential directive.
Other members who may soon launch an attack on the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led National Working Committee (NWC) are those engaged to conduct screening and party primaries that produced candidates for the 2023 election.
Aside from the non-payment of their allowances, it was gathered that the members are irked by the NWC decision to slash the yet-to-be-paid allowances by 40 per cent.
An affected member who stepped down for one of the national vice chairmanship candidates, who was also involved in the conduct of primaries in the Northwest, complained bitterly.
He said: ‘When the president gave the order on March 23, one will think the first assignment of beneficiaries of the consensus arrangement would be to effect an immediate refund of our nomination fees, having asked us to write our bank details for refund.
“The party is buoyant. The Governor Buni-led Caretaker Committee left money, the NWC equally realised a huge sum, running to billions of Naira. What excuse will the NWC give for this delay? When the committee (NWC) has since paid their allowances.
“Individually we applied for a refund and we have collectively sent a formal letter through the Forum of National Convention Aspirants but all have gone unattended to. The irony of it is that when we failed to honour a promise made to our members; when the party engaged members on sensitive assignments like the screening and conduct of primaries and the assignment was carried out, using our money, one would not expect the party to honour us with non-payment of our dues. To add salt to our injury, we learnt that the yet-to-be-paid allowances have been slashed by 40 per cent.”
National Vice Chairman (Northwest) Salihu Lukman regretted the delay, but said the matter is being looked into.
“It is part of the unfortunate internal challenges. Administratively, this should have been resolved long ago. For instance, in my case, about four people stepped down for me and they have been talking to me. I have been drawing the party’s attention and I think now it is clear that the party has to resolve it as quickly as possible. I can assure you it will happen soon.”
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