There are hints that the All Progressives Congress’ national secretariat staff is uneasy with the decision to provide housing and vehicle allowances for National Working Committee members.
Workers’ protests that they were still due their September salaries led to the development.
Felix Morka, the party’s national publicity secretary, said that the salary issue was being resolved at the time and noted that the delay was brought on by a “internal system.”
The information was made public a few weeks after Senator Abdullahi Adamu, the national chairman of the APC, replaced six departmental directors who were on leave at the national secretariat.
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The impacted directors included Salisu Dambatta (publicity), Dare Oketade, Bartholomew Ugwoke (research), Abubakar Suleiman (finance), Dr. Suleiman Abubakar (administration), and Anietie Offong (welfare) (Head of Legal).
The media has been flooded with stories about their supposed dismissal and replacement with others during the past two weeks.
At a media debate, Adamu explained the purpose of his action: to sanitize the system.
He also refuted claims that he replaced people with his friends.
The APC chairman claimed that despite encountering systematic corruption, tardy personnel, and a registry with over 200 names that included phantom employees, it was hard for him to ignore such irregularities.
However, the fired directors argued that their dismissal was planned.
Abubakar Suleiman, a former director of administration for the party, charged the Adamu-led NWC with failing to inform them of their “sin” before placing them on “compulsory annual vacation.”
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He said, “Adamu lied. Nothing went wrong. The secretariat was in good hands. What necessitated his decision was not known to us or anybody. It was an agendum. Nobody was indicted. I am sure you must have heard the accounts of other directors too. Nothing went wrong anywhere.”
Asked about Adamu’s claim of N7.5bn, he dismissed it as non-existent.
He said, “As directors, we didn’t approve anything. Our job was to implement. If the party feels otherwise, let the EFCC or other anti-corruption body be invited to investigate the APC accounts, including the secret ones being operated by the party leadership.”
Meanwhile, our correspondent discovered from top party sources that Adamu and members of the NWC paid themselves four years’ worth of allowances just one month after they were removed.
One of the sources said, “Adamu and the NWC members have paid themselves four-year allowances upfront. Of course, they are doing this because they know many of them can’t stay long in that secretariat and it is unfortunate many people are afraid to talk about it.
“We made N39bn just from the sale of forms at the convention, you won’t believe that by September (last month), the party leadership spent over N20bn out of it.
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“If he contests it, let him bring details of the account rendered before those directors were subtly pushed out of the system. I read the reports from his interview with the media last week.
“There was nowhere in the handover note left in the care of the party leadership that N7.5bn was owed, as Adamu is alleging. Before the Adamu-led NWC took over, all arrears were cleared and salaries were not owed. It is on record that we were usually paid on the 25th of every month. What do we have now? They are just allocating allowances and buying themselves cars all over the place.”
Some staff members who appeared unhappy and troubled informed our correspondent that life had become intolerable for them under the party’s present leadership.
They stated that the continuing secretariat refurbishment was being done at the expense of their survival, which made them even more incensed.
A member of the administrative staff revealed to our correspondent that the chairman only agreed to pay the wage for August following their complaint.
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She said, “They did not even give us any form of assurance when we will be paid our September salary. I must say things have been tough working under this current chairman.
“While we were still struggling to contend with being owed September salary, the leadership of the party brought in people to remodel the structure of the secretariat in order to give it a facelift.
“How do you leave payment of people’s salary and focus on the renovation of a building? It shows the party is not broke as they are trying to make us believe.”
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