APC candidates who stood down on Buhari's instructions are yet to get their nomination fees refunded

ALL Progressives Congress (APC) aspirants who stood down during the party's March 26 national convention on the orders of President Muhammadu Buhari with the promise that they will get their nomination fees refunded are yet to be paid.

During the convention, several party members sought to stand for chairman and other offices but President Buhari asked them to stand down because he wanted to produce consensus candidates. These members had, however, bought nomination forms and were told that they would be reimbursed the cost of this,

Investigations show, however, that the APC is indebted to members and over the last two months, the party has also failed in the payment of staff salaries. June salaries were paid in mid July and workers only received their July pay last Friday, as against the due date of the 25th of every month.

At a March 24 meeting with eight national chairmanship aspirants, President Buhari persuaded them to step down for a consensus candidate, with a promise to refund their nomination fees. Each aspirant for party offices paid between N20 and N2.5m for the expression of interest and nomination forms, depending on the office contested for.

Investigations showed that the party raked in over N700m from about 170 persons during the exercise. It was also learnt that the party generated over N3bn from members who purchased the expression of interest and nomination forms to contest for tickets ahead of the 2023 general elections.

Despite the huge receipts, affected party members are complaining about the non-compliance with the presidential directive. Aside from the non-payment of their allowances, members engaged in conducting screening and primaries that produced  candidates for the 2023 election are irked by the National Working Committee (NWC) decision to slash their yet-to-be-paid allowances by 40%.

One member who stepped down for one of the national vice chairmanship candidates, said: "When the president gave the order on March 23, one will think the first assignment of beneficiaries of the consensus arrangement would be to effect an immediate refund of our nomination fees, having asked us to write our bank details for refund.

“The party is buoyant. The Governor Buni-led caretaker committee left money, the NWC equally realised a huge sum, running to billions of naira. What excuse will the NWC give for this delay?"

National vice chairman, northwest, Salihu Lukman said the party regretted the delay but said the matter is being looked into. He said: “It is part of the unfortunate internal challenges. Administratively, this should have been resolved long ago.

"For instance, in my case, about four people stepped down for me and they have been talking to me. I have been drawing the party’s attention and I think now it is clear that the party has to resolve it as quickly as possible. I can assure you it will happen soon.”