We Know Nothing About Alleged N800M Spent On Publicity – APC Media Convention Subcommittee
The media subcommittee of the recently held National Convention of the All Progressives Congress (APC,) has denied a report by a national newspaper that it spent a whopping sum of Eight Hundred Million (N800,000,000.00) only in carrying out its assignment.
The committee chaired by Abdullahi Sule, the governor of Nassarawa State and co-chaired by Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, described the report as “strange news, and totally untrue”.
According to Mallam Garba Shehu, who served as the Secretary of the subcommittee, “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 subcommittee, which I served as the Secretary, got the total sum of One Hundred Million Naira ( N100,000,000.00) only. We thank the governor for giving us the venue, tea and coffee.
“We submitted a budget of about Three Hundred and Sixty Million Naira (N360, 000,000.00) only. When the Finance Subcommittee told us that even the N100 million paid us was more than our budgetary allocation, we scrambled backwards, cancelling commitments duly entered into for billboards, production of documentaries, lamp pole ads and so many other things. Some we could cancel, others were irreversible.
“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. In 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.
Mallam further said that the expenses sheet accounting for the N100 Million and the detailed report of the work by the subcommittee has since been sent to the party and shared with the committee leaders and its membership.
“In the course of doing this work, all payments to third parties were done by a committee member in the presence of at least two other members. This was in a bid to rise above scandal”, he said.
