- Buhari, El-Rufai, Amaechi missing at APC’s NEC meeting in Abuja
BY EDMOND ODOK – In a season of rising debt profiles everywhere, the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has confessed that the party’s National Working Committee (NWC), under his leadership, inherited a huge debt burden of N8.9 billion.
Ganduje told the APC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Abuja that the worrying debt figure arose from expenses incurred during pre-election legal battles, election cases, and appeals for legislative, governorship, and presidential elections nationwide.
According to him; “The current NWC inherited debts and legal liabilities to the total tune of N8,987,874,663, arising from various legal engagements”.
However, he said the good news is that the Party’s National Legal Adviser, Professor Abdul Kareem Kana (SAN), has been working to reduce the debt burden, adding; “We still passionately appeal to the National Executive Committee to intervene accordingly”.
At the meeting were President Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Vice President Kashim Shettima; Senate President Godswill Akpabio; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas; state governors; NWC members; and numerous chieftains of the ruling party.
Conspicuously absent from the NEC meeting were former President Muhammadu Buhari; Immediate past Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai; as well as former Governor of Rivers State and ex-Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi.
The first since Tinubu’s assumption of office in May 2023, the NEC meeting came a day after the national caucus meeting of the party met at the Presidential Villa also in Abuja.
Forefront News notes that some prominent figures in the Party, including former Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna State and former National Vice Chairman of the Party, Salihu Lukman have consistently complained about the lack of internal democracy in the ruling party as all the organs seem to have gone to sleep un the watch of Mr President and National Chairman, Alhaji Ganduje.
