George Akume, the minister of special duties and intergovernmental affairs said he has donated the N20 million with which he purchased nomination forms for the All Progressive Congress (APC) National Chairmanship race to the party.
President Muhamadu Buhari had in the build up to the March 26 National Convention of the party asked the leadership to refund to aspirants who agreed to step down for consesus candidates, the fee they paid for the purchase of forms.
BusinessDay gathered that Abdullahi Adamu, who emeged APC National Chairman along with members of the National Working Committee who had assumed office last week Wednesday are yet to carry out the President’s instructed.
Addressing journalists when he led a high-powered APC delegation from Benue on a solidarity visit to Adamu at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja on Tuesday, Akume said he has willingly donated his money to the party.
The former Benue State Governor said he believed that other aspirants who stepped down for the new National and Zonal Officers to emerge through consenus would do same.
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He said: “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.
“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 former Senate Minority Leader assured Nigerians, particularly the APC and the National Chairman that the little skirmishes in Benue State Chapter of the party are going to be squarely addressed for the benefit of the party and its teaming supporters who look unto APC as the only hope of the common man in Benue state and at the national level.
“So we are very confident that APC Benue will come on stronger than can never imagine. We are doing very well, we have registered so much, so many members. We have registered those who are ready to vote and therefore, Benue is ready to go.
“This is a party that have membership of over 42 million Nigerians. Clearly legitimise by the photograph that we have on each form and I can say at a point that our junior partners have tried to do what we did so successfully.
“The revalidation excercise, they tried twice and they fail twice. So we are very proud of this record that we are the biggest political party in West Africa. Having said that, let me turn to what you have said, a very big political party like the APC even at the state level is expected to have a little irritations here and there but these irritations are not sufficiently strong to break the organic unity of the party in Benue state. Even members of the same family occasionally have some issues” he said.
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