President Muhammadu Buhari has politely turned down an appeal by leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to get funding assistance from the Presidency.
Yakubu Dogara, President Buhari, APC National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun and Bukola Saraki during the APC NEC meeting
On Monday, the leadership of the ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC), held a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari to brief him on the state of affairs of the party and the critical state of the party’s finances, reportedly urging him and other elected members to assist in funding the operations of the party.
It was revealed the president nicely refused to make any commitment to bear the financial burden of running his party, admonishing party leaders to remember how the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), leaders messed up themselves by dipping hands into public funds to run the party’s campaigns.
He then advised his party’s National Working Committee (NWC), who came to meet with him to go back and look inwards on how to mobilize funds internally through regular fees and donations from members.
According to ThisDay, the party did not succeed in persuading the President to play pivotal role in its fund-raising campaign as he declined to make any commitment.
Those who were at the meeting which held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, included the National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun; National Secretary, Alhaji Mai-Mala Buni; Deputy National Chairman (North), Senator Lawan Shuaibu, and Deputy National Chairman, Chief Segun Oni.
The newspaper was told that, "Buhari declined from making any financial commitment. He rather reminded the APC NWC members of how the leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) messed themselves up by dipping their hands into public funds to run the party campaigns.
He said he would not want APC to be seen as behaving in the same manner, moreso now that it is running a corrective government."