APC’s Media Sub-committee on Convention Denies Spending N800m

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The Sub-committee of the National Convention Planning Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has denied spending a whopping sum of N800 million to carry out its assignment.

The media committee of the March 26 National Convention was headed by the Governor of Nasarawa State, Mr Abdullahi Sule, with the Minister of Information and Culture, Mr Lai Mohammed, as the co-chairman.
The Secretary of the Sub-committee, Mallam Garba Shehu in a statement issued yesterday described the media report as strange and untrue.

He said: “If that huge amount of money was spent on media work at the convention, we make bold to say that we were, and still are unaware of the what, who, when and how it was expended.

“The Sub-committee, which I served as Secretary, got the total sum of N100 million only. We thank the governor for giving us a venue, tea and coffee. We submitted a budget of about N360 million.”

Shehu explained that when the Finance Sub-committee told the media committee that even the N100 million paid to the committee was more than its budgetary allocation, the media committee scrambled backwards, cancelling commitments duly entered into for billboards, production of documentaries, lamp pole ads and so many other things.

He added: “On the assurances given by our leaders, we negotiated a token of commitment to TV networks for Live Coverage, with everyone agreeing that was a must-do for the convention. At the very end, we could only pay half of that amount to each of the stations, hoping that the leadership of the party will take responsibility for the payment of the balances due as a matter of honour.”

Shehu noted that the expenses sheet accounting for the N100 million and the detailed report of the work by the Sub-committee had since been sent to the party and shared with the committee leaders and its membership.

He stressed that in the course of doing the work, all payments to third parties were done by a committee member in the presence of at least two other members, saying this was in a bid to rise above scandal.

Shehu stated: “Given the astonishing revelation of the money allegedly spent by our committee in this report, we strongly suspect that our account, rendered to the party, detailing every one of our expenses may have been the trigger for the ongoing investigation and the reported suspensions.

“Whatever be the case, we are absolutely in support of the ongoing probe into the convention finances. To convince anyone that the party is ready to continue with the cleansing of the nation being carried out by the Muhammadu Buhari administration, it must first cleanse its own house.”

The media committee noted that it stands with the Adamu-led National Working Committee (NWC) as it carries out this exercise, insisting that nothing should be hidden under the carpet.