APC: Adamu denies replacing sacked directors with relatives, laments N7.5 billion legal debt

The All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu on Thursday revealed that his administration inherited N7.5 billion legal debt from the Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee led by Governor Mai Mala Buni.

The National Chairman disclosed during a media parley at the party headquarters in Abuja.

Adamu said when he assumed office seven months ago, he met a disorganised secretariat and workforce not befitting for a ruling party.

He said he met series of unwholesome practices and saw that need to address them.

Reacting to report that Directors were secretly sacked and replaced with his family members and relatives, the National Chairman said “The fact of the matter is, go round the secretariat, there is no one person who has come here who is a member of my family, primary or secondary.

“When we came here, we came to reorganize and reposition the party. You don’t see the party in a state of mess and just because you want to be decent, because you don’t want to offend anybody, you allow the rot that you inherited to go on.

“We came and met the party where people were fixing all manner of things, the legal bill alone was over N7.5 billion. We came to find that here, everybody was like on his own. Everyone was just doing what they wanted to do, no control, no system, no due process and just because you don’t want to be accused of anything, you just allow that kind of thing to go on. I am not that brand. My DNA has terrible allergy for that and I am sure most, if not all of my members in the NWC share in this.

“So, we found the necessity to reorganize the whole place and only God knows the extent of appreciation of the public that we got.

“Of course, every situation of change has its victims and ours will not be an exception and we didn’t do anything with any bias or prejudice. The main thing is the interest of the party, to reposition it in an election year.

“We will be abused, we will be falsely accused. Of course, we are humans, I am not saying we couldn’t have made one or two mistakes, but the fact of the matter is that there is nothing we have done deliberately just to promote our own feathers.

“We know we don’t have 200 people working here but if you go to the payroll, you have over 200 people. Who are they? How did they come on our payroll? What are they doing for us? What is the nature of their jobs? Where are their letters of appointment? What qualifications do they have? You don’t because you want to avoid negative press and then not do this. We did everything in good faith and I don’t have any qualms about it”, he added.