APC national secretariat in a mess when I assumed office —Adamu

NATIONAL chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Abdullahi Adamu, on Thursday said when he assumed office, the party secretariat was in a mess, with everybody on his own. 

While speaking with newsmen in Abuja, he said, “The fact of the matter is that, when we came here, we came to reorganise and reposition the party. You don’t see the party in a mess and because you want to be decent and don’t want to offend anybody, you allow all that you inherited to go. 

“We came and find a party where people are fixing all manner of things. We had a bill of about N7.7 billion to settle only on legal alone, aside from the press adverts being owed.

“We came to find that everybody was like on his own. Everybody was doing what he wanted to do, with no control, no system, no due process. 

“I am not in that brand. My DNA has terrible allergies for that and I am sure most of my members if not all members of NWC share in this. 

“So we find the necessity to reorganise the entire place and only God knows, the extent of the appreciation of the public that we got. Of course, every situation of change had a victim and ours could not be an exception. We did not do anything with any bias or prejudices on our part. 

“The main thing was the interest of the party and to reposition it. We are in an election year. We could be abused, we would be falsely accused. Maybe there are one or two mistakes, we are human. 

“I don’t say we may not make mistakes, we can. But the fact of the matter is, there is nothing we have done deliberately just to feather our nest. I don’t do it. 

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“Recently we tried to introduce table payment. If you are a member of this chapel, you know we don’t have 200 people working for us here, but if you go through the payroll, we have more than 200 people. Who are they? How do they come on our payroll? What are they doing for us? What is the description of their jobs? Where are their letters of appointments? What condition of service do they have? 

“We met arrears, we have paid arrears since we came. I don’t have qualms about whatever anybody will say. Who has been suspended or who has been asked to come back? We did everything in good faith.” 

On efforts to reconcile power blocs in the ruling party ahead of the general election, he said the APC National Working Committee under his leadership has not abandoned troubleshooting efforts to ensure that aggrieved chieftains, particularly the presidential aspirants, queue behind the standard-bearer, Senator Bola Tinubu. 

“As for reconciliation, it is a work in progress. We have been talking, we have been doing it. We have been doing it individually and these guys are in a political space that you (journalists) can always reach them and ask whatever your curiosity is. Talk to them and see what they can tell you,” he said.