How APC Denied Tinubu Campaign Funds Ahead 2023 Polls – Lukman

Unknown to many, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not receive any form of financial support from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to prosecute his nationwide presidential campaigns.

APC’s national vice chairman North West, Dr Salihu Lukman who spoke to reporters in Abuja ahead of the national executive council (NEC) meeting described the development as not only odd but a clear departure from what obtains in the past.

Lukman further alleged that aside from Tinubu, candidates of the party that vied for various elective seats were also denied financial support by the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led national working committee (NWC).

The Kaduna-born politician remarked that the development was in sharp contrast to what was obtained when Comrade Adams Oshiomhole held sway as every candidate of the party received monetary support from the national secretariat prior to the 2019 poll.

Said he: “This last election no candidate of the candidate received a dime from the party. Even Tinubu didn’t get a dime from the party. I am making this public. Let them challenge me and contradict me.”

Asked if he had any idea of what was given to Buhari In 2015 and 2019, he said: “Look in 2015, the party was truly a model party. President Buhari doesn’t have money. People were signed responsible to raise money. It’s just like Asiwaju and you say Asiwaju have 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 if 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 problem we are having.”

“Talking of finances in our constitution the national executive council (NEC) is supposed to approve some form of sharing formula.
“I am aware that each state chapter have 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.

He cited the absence of quarterly reports of the income and expenditure of the party, the party’s national budget and constitute key organs of the party as some of the infractions committed under the Sen Abdullahi Adamu-led national working committee (NWC).

He noted: “By the provision of Article 13 (4.4) of the APC constitution we are obligated by the constitution to present quarterly reports of the income and expenditure of the party.

“I want to say this for the records. Since we came we have never been presented, even at the last NEC of April 2022, we have not been presented financial reports till today. I challenge both the national chairman and the national secretary, they have never presented to the NWC any financial statement.

“The other issue is that we are expected to present a proposed national budget to the NEC for approval by the provision of Article 13, 3A.14 of the APC constitution. I felt embarrassed when I heard the national secretary saying 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 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 the national budget we are just coming out of elections whereby we are not able to sustain past precedence. What was the past precedence?”

Lukman reiterated his call for the immediate removal of Sen Abdullahi Adamu and Iyiola Omisore as the national chairman and secretary of the party based on the urgent need to reposition the party.

He added: “I started my call for the resignation of Sen Abdullahi Adamu based on pure moral appeal, based on the dynamics that played out in the election. But I can say assuming we want to mutate to become a conservative party even with that kind of aspiration I don’t think Abdullahi Adamu and Omisore are committed to lead the party based on the provision of its constitution.

“This is where they just need to do soul searching. Except they want to become sit-tight leaders and sit-tight leaders always end up badly. The dynamics is very clear and I think at this point for me as somebody who has been around, I was a member of one of the legacy parties and it was quite interesting last night when I hear Sen Abdullahi Adamu say that he doesn’t know me from anywhere, he has never read about me.

“That is his own cup of tea. I have been around and I have been active in terms of the advocacy for the merger. No leader of the party would say he has not come across my contribution as controversial as they may appear and I don’t shy away from that.

“Even the mere fact of our emergence as leaders of the party I mean I want to be modest that I participated in the campaign to remove Adams Oshiomhole and the caretaker committee. Our vision was that we would produce a leadership under Abdullahi Adamu that would take us back to our founding vision of a party that would encourage internal debate.

“What I see now is a party that doesn’t want any debate. Senator Abdullahi Adamu and Omisore want to behave like emperors and sincerely speaking that departs from the vision of APC being a progressive party. They made unpalatable comments about my antecedents and I challenge them to present clips of where I tendered apologies.

“Whatever is my antecedents there is nothing in my antecedents that made me an alleged murderer or somebody associated with witches.”