The All Progressives Congress (APC) is yet to refund the nomination fee paid by aspirants who submitted themselves to the consensus arrangement that produced the new national chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, and other members of his National Working Committee at the national convention held penultimate weekend.
Minister of Special Duties and former Chairmanship aspirants, Senator George Akume, made the disclosure on Tuesday when he led a delegation of Benue APC stakeholders on solidarity visits to Senator Adamu.
Checks revealed that aspirants for the office of national chairman paid the sum of N20m as nomination forms while aspirants for national secretary paid the sum of N10m.
Further investigation revealed that six chairmanship aspirants withdrew from the race after pleas from the APC Governors.
The list included, Senator Tanko Al-Makura, Senator Sani Musa, Alhaji Saliu Mustapha, George Akume, Etsu Mohammed and former governor of Zamfara state,Abdul Aziz Yari.
Among aspirants for the office of national secretary who equally withdrew from the race were former Minister of Communications, Honourable Adebayo Shittu, and Engineer Ifeoluwa Oyedele.
Speaking with newsmen after the meeting with Senator Adamu, the former Benue State Governor said there was no clear instruction from President Buhari that aspirants be refunded their nominations fees.
The Minister of Special Duties who said he was not bothered about refund of his N20M nomination fee further urged other aspirants who withdrew from the race to cooperate with the new National Working Committee under Senator Adamu.
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He said: “Let me say that those of us who indicated interest for leadership of the party did not have any ulterior motive, we have no sinister motive whatsoever, we thought we could also add value to the party taking it to the next level as we move towards 2023.
“We are very patriotic citizens and we are members of this party. Those of us who tried to have a shot at the chairmanship slot, we are still members of this party and nothing had distracted us from joining others in finding solutions to the small problems that we have in the APC.
“The issue of directives did not occur whatsoever in our dinner with Mr president. We ate the dinner with him and he appealed to us to build the consensus as much as we could and that was basically what we did. It was not a directive and you know who the president is: a democrat to the core. I know and I recall what happened in the past when I was the governor; there was a war of difference between the way Mr president operates and the way we saw things happened between 1999 and 2007.
“The issue on money does not arise. I had willingly donated my own to the party and I believe others would do the same thing. We have this basic understanding, we have to support the present leadership of the party to succeed; that is what is important so that we will continue with the good work that Mr President is doing.”
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Akume pays visit to Adamu, says no intention to seek refund of nomination fee
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