I ‘ve forfeited my N20m nomination fee to APC–Akume

From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Former Governor of Benue State, Chief George Akume, has announced that, in his determination to move the All Progressives Congress (APC) forward, he has forfeited the N20 million he spent to purchase the expression of interest and nomination forms to contest the national chairmanship position.
He made the disclosure while addressing newsmen after a closed-door meeting with the national chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, at the party’s secretariat on Tuesday.
Asked if he has forfeited the fund he used to purchase nomination forms, 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 in taking it to the next level as we move towards in 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; we 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 as much as we could and that was basically what we did. It was not a directive and you know who the President is; a democrat 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.
“The issue of money did 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 noted.
On his take home from the visit, he said: “Basically we are here on solidarity visit, we came to congratulate the chairman for being elevated to the exalted position of chairman of the greatest party in Africa.”
“This is a party that have membership of over 42 million Nigerians. Clearly legitimise 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.
“The re-validation 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 little 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 are going to be squarely address 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.
“So we are very confident that APC Benue will come on stronger than can never imagine. We are doing very well, we have registered so much, so many members. We have registered those who are ready to vote and therefore, Benue is ready to go,” he said.