APC aspirant drags party to court over failure to refund nomination fee despite Buhari’s directive
Sunny Moniedafe, an aspirant in the March 26, 2022, national convention of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has taken legal action against the party’s leadership, headed by Abdullahi Ganduje, for not refunding his expression of interest and nomination form fees.
According to reports, the case is set to be heard tomorrow, Monday, October 28, at an Abuja High Court. Moniedafe confirmed this in an interview with Punch, explaining that he filed the lawsuit to reclaim his nomination fees due to specific contingencies.
APC
The lawsuit came two years after the aggrieved aspirants were asked to step down for the immediate past National Chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, and other members of the National Working Committee.
According to Monidafe, despite the directive by former president, Muhammed Buhari, to refund their money for stepping down for Adamu and his NWC members, the ruling party has stoutly refused to reimburse them.
Monidafe said, “God knows we tried our best by not making this matter public for this long. We have written, visited, and pleaded even with the party’s current leadership since Dr Abdullahi Ganduje took over. The last time I went there in the company of Barrister Adebayo Shittu and some chieftains to plead with them to no avail.
“We can’t continue like this. Let the world know our plight and acknowledge that we have tried our best. It is not fair. That’s why I had to take the legal approach. At least, now they can come to the court and officially tell Nigerians their position. It was even because of this issue we created a platform to keep communicating with ourselves.”
Some other aspirants who spoke to the aforementioned publication lamented that they had explored and exhausted all available options to get their money back.
Depending on the category of the expression of interest and nomination forms, the 107 aspirants who contested various positions for the composition of the NWC paid between ₦20m and ₦25m each.
At the end of the exercise, APC raked in over ₦700m with an additional ₦3bn generated among stakeholders and party members ahead of the presidential primary.
In one of the letters written to Adamu dated June 21, 2022, and appended by 107 signatories, the aggrieved aspirants accused the party of excluding them from active participation and assignments at the last party primaries for the election of various candidates.
Responding to the development, National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Felix Morka, told Punch that the matter has received attention and will be resolved soon.
