From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Adamu, has revealed that his National Working Committee (NWC) inherited N7.5 billion legal fee from the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC).
He also lamented inheriting an over-blotted secretariat staff strength, numbering over 200 that populated its payroll without any job schedule, specifications and appointment letters.
The former governor of Nasarawa State who spoke during a parley with correspondents covering the ruling party at the secretariat in Abuja, dismissed speculations that he sent directors on indefinite suspension, sacked and replaced them with his relatives.
However, reacting to the allegations, a source close to the CECPC chairman said Governor Buni would not be in any hurry to respond to such weighty allegations, adding: “We will wait till we read it first before responding.”
On allegations that he suspended directors and replaced with persons close to him, Adamu fumed that: “the true picture is that such report is false. It is all negative. The fact of the matter is that if you go through this secretariat there is no person employed since I took over that is related with me. Not one is a member of my family, immediate or extended. The report is s fallacy.
“When we came in here, we resolved to reorganise this party. You don’t see the party in a state of mess and allow the order you inherited to continue just because you want to be descent and not offend anybody. We came and found the party where people are fixing all manners of things. We had a bill of about N7.5 billion only legal to settle.
“We came to find out that everybody was on his own, doing whatever they want to do. There was no control, no system, no due process and just because we don’t want to be accused of anything we allow all those kind of things to continue. My DNA has terrible allergy for that. And I am sure that most of, if not all my members are the same. We therefore found it a necessity to reorganise the entire place.
Only God knows the extent of appreciation from people. Every situation change has a victim and here is not an exception. We didn’t do anything with any bias or prejudice on our part. The main thing is for the interest of the party and to reposition it ahead of the election year. We will be abused and falsely accused but it is for the good of the party.”
On the over-blotted staff, he said: “Only recently, we tried to introduce table payments. All of us in this secretariat know that we don’t have up to 200 staff strength but if you go through the payroll we have over 200 staff. The big questions are, who are they and how did they come into the payroll, what are they doing for us, what is the nature of their job schedule, where is their letter of appointment and what condition of service do they have?
“We cannot because we are afraid of negative media allow it to continue. If we continue like that, we cannot pay salaries and that is the truth. We have no regret over who has been told to go on suspension or their replacement because we did everything in good faith,” he declared.
On unveiling of the party’s manifesto and inauguration of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), the party’s boss said: “Let us not preempt what the candidate of our party will unveiling to Nigerians. We must wait to hear from him concerning what we are going present to Nigerians.”
On current status of the aggrieved presidential aspirants and their readiness to key into the party’s programmes, he said: “To the best of our knowledge, the aspirants are keying into what the party is doing. One thing you owe yourself as journalists is to interact with each of the aspirants who are still alive. I don’t see any reason the media has not taken the initiative, having observed such, to investigate where they stand today.
“It is not good for me to start talking for them if what you noticed is very abnormal. You don’t have unrestrained access to them if you want to find out whether they are still part of this party.
“As for the reconciliation going on in the party, I can tell you that it is work in progress. We have been doing that, we have been talking to them, and they are very much around in the political space. You can reach out to them to ask,” he said.