in a state yesterday, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, has rejected the inclusion of its logo in the advertorial placed in some national dailies, yesterday, by Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State hailing the registration of APC.
The party said it was shocked by the development and consequently demanded a retraction by way of advertorial and a fee of N20 billion as damages done to it within seven days.
The party also demanded for a formal apology.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja yesterday, the National Chairman of the party, Chief Victor Umeh, said: “We are shocked to see in a national daily of today (yesterday) an advertorial placed by Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, congratulating APC for scaling the registration hurdle of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and in the publication, four party logos were lifted, ACN, CPC, ANPP and APGA.
“We are shocked that Governor Fashola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, can so mischievously place this advertorial which included the logo of All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA.
“Of course, the clear intention of this advertorial was to give the impression that APGA is now part of APC, that APGA is no longer a political party.
“Coming from a SAN, we know that Fashola knows the implication for these adverts. It is a mischief to deceive all our teeming supporters in Nigeria and abroad that APGA has now become part of APC.
“While we congratulate them of realising their dream of coming together to form a mega party called APC, fraudulently using APGA logo cannot be accepted by our party.
“The obvious damage this would do our party are well known to Nigerians. We are also passing this to our lawyers to make a demand of N20 billion damages.
“Fashola must pay this money to APGA. Politics of confusion must be avoided in Nigeria. Anybody can meet to do anything as he wished but within the law.”
He said his party never held any convention along side the three parties as part of the processes for merger, adding that INEC, while announcing withdrawal of Certificates of Registration of ACN, ANPP and CPC, did not include APGA.