APC aspirants seek nomination fee refund
The aspirants who were part of the March 26 National Convention of the All Progressives Congress APC, have threatened to sue the leadership of the party to court over its failure to refund the payment for their Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms.
THECONSCIENCEng reports that this comes four months after they were asked to step down for the current National Chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, and other members of the National Working Committee.
Some affected politicians who spoke in separate interviews expressed concerns that they have explored and exhausted all their options with the only obstacle being the national chairman.
Depending on the category of the expression of interest and nomination forms, the 126 aspirants who contested various positions were made to cough up between N20 and N2.5 million.
There were reports at the end of the exercise that APC raked in well over N700 million with an additional N3 billion generated among stakeholders and party members ahead of the presidential primary.
There were also complaints that despite the huge revenue generated by the leadership of the party between March and August, ad hoc workers, staff and affected party members who were engaged were equally not paid their welfare allowances.
The affected aspirants who stepped down for Adamu in the category of National Chairman included Senator Umar Al-Makura, Salihu Mustapha, Muhammed Sani Musa, Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar, Senator George Akume and Mohammed Etsu.
Those in the category of National Deputy Chairman (North), who withdrew for the consensus candidacy of Senator Abubakar Kyari, were Yakubu Dogara, Faruq Aliyu, Sunny Sylvester Monidefe, Senator Ken Nnamani, Malam Isa Yuguda and Emmanuel Joseph.
For the post of the National Secretary, three aspirants which included former Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu; Oyedele Ifeoluwa and Prof Olaiya Olaitan were sacrificed for the candidacy of Senator Iyiola Omisore.
In the category of National Vice Chairman (South-South), Yekini Nabena and Worgu Chambers were asked to step down for Victor Giadom.
Apart from the mentioned aspirants, there are 113 other aggrieved politicians whose refunds have not been activated.
