The National Vice Chairman (Northwest) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, has accused the party’s National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, of denying President Bola Tinubu and all candidates of the party financial support to execute the 2023 elections.
Speaking at a news conference in Abuja on Wednesday, Lukman disclosed that the party made over N30 billion from the sale of forms, yet it never supported President Tinubu and any of its candidates.
Lukman, who is a member of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the ruling party, asked Adamu to render a financial account of the party since he took over the helms of affairs.
He said; “We are expected to present a proposed national budget to the National Executive Committee NEC for approval by the provisions of Article 13(3A)(14) of the APC constitution. I felt embarrassed when I heard the National Secretary (Omisore) say the budget of the party has been sent to the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC. INEC is not the approving authority of the budget of the APC. The approving authority is the NEC. Till today we don’t have a national budget. Yet we made over N30 billion from sales of forms.
“Till today as a member of the NWC and majority members of the NWC, maybe with the exception of the Financial Secretary, Treasurer and or the Auditor who may have inside knowledge of how much was expended on the renovation of the National Secretariat of the party, we have no knowledge of what is being expended.
“Talking of national budget, we are just coming out of elections whereby we were not able to sustain past precedence. What was the past precedence? Under Comrade Adams Oshiomhole in 2019, every candidate of the party received something from the National Secretariat. In this last election, no candidate of the party received a dime from the party.
“Talking of finances, in our constitution the NEC is supposed to approve some form of sharing formula. I am aware that each state chapter has received about N20 million out of the N30 billion. Put together, that is about N700 million less than a billion which is less than 3 percent of the total income that has been earned. Yet we want to sweep this under the carpet.
“We are having states, zonal, local councils and ward levels who are left on their own. The whole question of funding of the party has not been addressed.
“Tinubu didn’t get a dime from the party. I am making this public. Let them challenge me and contradict me.”
Speaking further, Lukman said the party supported President Muhammadu Buhari financially when he was the party’s standard bearer in 2015 and 2019.
He said: “Look, in 2015, the party was truly a model party. President Buhari didn’t have money. People were assigned responsibilities to raise money. It is just like Asiwaju and you say Asiwaju has money. So there were people assigned with the responsibility of mobilizing money for the party.
“If anything was done in 2023 based on that, it would be the initiative of Asiwaju. I am not aware of it as a party. If you remember in between, we were busy causing distractions about what should be our roles in the Presidential Campaign Council.
“Unless we are humble and honest to admit that these are things that ordinarily shouldn’t have happened and admit we need to correct them and reshape the relationship between us and the government that emerged, we would continue to have the problems we are having.”