We will rescue Benue from opposition – Akume assure Supporters

Zakaa Lazarus, Abuja

The minister of special duties and Inter-governmental affairs, Senator
George Akume, has assured All Progressives Congress (APC) members that the party is doing everything possible to address the irritation in Benue State.

Akume gave the assurance while addressing Journalists during a solidarity visit to the APC national chairman Abdullahi Adamu, at the party National Secretariat Abuja, on Tuesday.

According to him, the purpose of his visit was to congratulate the newly elected APC Chair.

He said, “Basically we are here on solidarity visit, we come to congratulate the chairman for being elevated to the exalted position of chairman of the greatest party in Africa. This is a party that have membership of over 42 million Nigerians. Clearly legitimise by the photograph that we have on each form and I can say at a point that our junior partners have tried to do what we did so successfully.

“The revalidation exercise, they tried twice and they fail twice. So we are very proud of this record that we are the biggest political party in West Africa. Having said that, let me turn to what you have said, a very big political party like the APC even at the state level is expected to have a little irritations here and there but these irritations are not sufficiently strong to break the organic unity of the party in Benue state. Even members of the same family occasionally have some issues.

“We want to assure Nigerians particularly the APC and indeed the national chairman that the little irritation in Benue state are going to be squarely address for the benefit of our party and for the benefit of our teaming supporters who look onto the APC as the only hope of the common man in Benue state and even at the national level.

Akume who led a delegation of Benue party faithfuls reiterated that the APC in Benue will bounce back stronger than ever before.

“So we are very confident that APC Benue will come on stronger than can never imagine. We are doing very well, we have registered so much, so many members. We have registered those who are ready to vote and therefore, Benue is ready to go.

When asked by journalist if he has gotten the money that was asked by Mr president Buhari to be refund to all Aspirants that contested for the election, Akume said:”Let me say that those of us who indicated interest for leadership of the party did not have any sinister motive whatsoever, we thought we could also add value to the party taking it to the next level as we move towards 2023.

We are very patriotic citizens and we are members of this party. Those of us who tried to have a shot at the chairmanship slot; we are still members of this party and nothing had distracted us from joining others in finding solutions to the small problems that we have in the APC.

” The issue of directives did not occur whatsoever in our dinner with Mr president. We ate the dinner with him and he appealed to us to build the consensus as much as we could and that was basically what we did. It was not a directive and you know who the president is; a democrat to the core. I know and I recall what happened in the past when I was the governor; there was a war of difference between the way Mr president operates and the way we saw between 1999 and 2007.

“The issue on money does not arise. I had willingly donated my own to the party and I believe others would do the same thing. We have this basic understanding, we have to support the present leadership of the party to succeed; that is what is important so that we will continue with the good work that Mr president is doing”, he added.