By Abdul lawal

National Chairman, All Progressives Congress (APC), Sen Abdullahi Adamu has disclosed that his administration inherited N7.5 billion debt from his predecessor and Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni

Adamu stated this on Thursday, 20 October, 2022 during his maiden media chat with APC media correspondents, seven months after taking office at the APC National secretariat, Abuja

 He said his election as the APC national chairman was to reposition the APC and prepare the party for victory in the 2023 General Elections to meet the yearning of Nigerians.

He also used the occasion to welcome the new APC Director of Publicity, Mr. Bala Mohamed and charged him with the task of projecting the positive image of the party.

Adamu said: “It is my pleasure on behalf of the National Working Committee to say a very big welcome to all of you. 

“This is our seventh month in office and we are still trying as much as time and circumstances will permit us to find the altitude of our flight. We came in at a very difficult time. The party had its challenges that affected the sustainability of the party before we were elected. And when we came we had INEC timetables for primaries and the elections for this coming 2023. We had to find the right mix for all the primaries from the delegates to the various levels of election to the actual Congress that produced our candidates for state houses of assembly, House of Representatives, governorship, Senate and of course the presidential primaries which we concluded precisely on the 8th of June. 

“While this was happening we inherited the press corps. Those of you who are familiar with the geography and features of the national secretariat of the APC will appreciate the fact and reality that we are trying to reshape our national secretariat and reengineer its image as the headquarters of the ruling parties of this country. We are still not done yet but we’ve made tremendous progress. One of the things we’ve done is to give the press corps a chapel, its own building. We have built a fairly modern structure that is supposed to house a chapel. They can have their conference, receive their visitors, organise their own events and I can say with every sense of satisfaction that no party in this country has done what we have done for the press corps chapel. It is our hope that as we go along whatever is needed to upgrade the facilities for them we will not hesitate to so do

“Today’s event is also about introducing our Director Media and publicity in person of Bala Ibrahim. They call him Mr. Black and White; he will tell you what that means. Before him we had our Media and publicity department is headed by the national publicity secretary of the party. It is our hope because he is the highest publicity officer of the party that we will be presenting him again when the campaigns really kicks off, in what I will call branding him as the arrowhead of anything publicity. We will do that in due course.

  “But we took time to present the director, media and publicity because we want to see that we take off a bit of the heat. There will be too much of heat on one office and as we are going into campaigns now we need to see that the aspect of publicity for this party and our operators is handled in such a manner that will maximise the possible benefits to the party and to Nigerians in terms of what is happening and what we are doing. We taught we can start from the bottom of the ladder by presenting to you the director of media and publicity in my office. I am the chief executive of this party and it is my hope that similar events will be taking place in due course so that we can place ourselves in proper perspective in terms of the media.” 

 The APC national chairman added:

“Why are we doing all these? We want to do this because we believe that our modern society seeks to know what is happening. The party being a primary member of the society must be sure that its membership is fully abreast of what it is doing or what it seeks to do or what obstacles are on our way so that we can share this on continuous basis with the followership of the party. Our leadership is about the people, if we don’t have followership we have no business being here. So, we do not want to run a solo leadership. We want to carry the membership along particularly during this period of electioneering. And who is our partner in doing this. We believe we have no better partner apart from the members of the party itself and the media.

“This far we have not been receiving a good share of publicity but we are not surprised. Every ruling party in every clime suffers from this phenomenon. We are not praying to be in opposition. We have to develop the capacity to handle this phenomenon of support always going for the underprivileged.

“But we want to do what is right as humanly possible and our first point of call is our chapel. An unfortunate observation is that when you see any negative coverage it is usually first from the home front. I’m not saying it casually but as a matter of cause and concern. I’m not saying that the media should compromise its professional ethics. Live by it, work by it but for God’s sake let your blood be your blood. If you are here, see us as a family for as long as you are here while not comprising the ethics of your practice. But we thought we need to close the gap where there is a gap and this is the beginning. We are not always perfect but we want to be on the right side of the of the people.
Responding, the new APC Director of Publicity, Mr. Bala Mohamed, promised to work in synergy with the APC media correspondent to promote the APC image and serve as a bridge between the party NWC and APC Press Corps.