By David Lawani
The former Governor of Benue State and Minister of Special Duties, Senator George Akume has clarified the statement on the directive by President Muhammadu Buhari that all the chairmanship aspirants under the party who stepped for Abdullahi Adamu as chairman of the party should be refunded their EOI saying there was nothing like a refund when they all had dinner with the president.

Clarifying, Akume who was accompanied by some Benue APC stakeholders on a solidarity visit to the Buhari House, the national headquarters of the party in Abuja maintained that he had no ulterior motive when he accepted to step and he also believed others did sane with him.

He noted that the issue didn’t arise because he willing donated his own and it is part of his contribution to the party so that the issues in the party are tackled from every direction stressing that there was no denying the fact that APC was in crisis before the convention and he sees it fit that the present NWC needs their supports and party members to succeed since the 2023 general is at hand.

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He said: ” Let me say that 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; 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 issue of directives did not occur whatsoever in our dinner with Mr president. We ate the dinner with him and he appealed to us to build the consensus Weas much as we could and that was basically what we did. It was not a directive and you know who the president is; a Democratic to the core. I know and I recall what happened in the past when I was the governor; there was a war of difference between the way Mr president operates and the way we saw between 1999 and 2007.

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” The issue on money does not arise. 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^, he stated.

On the perennial issues affecting the party in Benue and what efforts are in place so as for the party to bounce back to reckoning, Akume explained that they came to congratulate the newly elected chairman and wish to assure him and his NEC members that they have their confidence to succeed with the party.

“Basically we are here on a solidarity visit, we come to congratulate the chairman for being elevated to the exalted position of chairman of the greatest party in Africa. This is a party that has a membership of over 42 million Nigerians. Legitimize 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.

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“The revalidation exercise, 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 few 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.

“We want to assure Nigerians particularly the APC and indeed the national chairman that the little irritation in Benue state is going to be squarely addressed for the benefit of our party and for the benefit of our teaming supporters who look onto the APC as the only hope of the common man in Benue state and even at the national level.

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“So we are very confident that APC Benue will come on stronger than can ever imagine. We are doing very well, we have registered so many, so many members. We have registered those who are ready to vote and therefore, Benue is ready to go”, he noted.