Group foresees withholding of Kano councils’ allocations

.PDP offers reasons for boycotting poll
Alliance for Good Governance (AGG) has expressed concern over the likelihood of the Federal Government withholding statutory allocations to the 44 local councils in Kano State.

National Coordinator, Malam Tanko Musa, in a statement yesterday, said their fear is premised on the fact that the Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf-led administration went ahead to conduct the council poll last Saturday, “in breach of the extant provision of the law. This is a clear case of contempt to the courts.”

The group argued that the “outcome cannot stand since it is trite knowledge in law that you cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stay there, as it will surely collapse.”

AGG warned of an “impending constitutional anarchy since the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), which faulted the entire process in the lead-up to the conduct of the council poll, would not sit by and allow the reign of impunity in the state.”

The group went on: “Our genuine fear is what if the APC, which put up a successful effort to stop the local council poll, approaches the court again to prevail on the Federal Government to freeze Kano State local councils’ allocation since they cannot allow money, meant for the people of the state, to be administered by wrong hands.

“It is the citizens in the 44 local councils who would be denied their monthly salaries and other welfare incentives that would suffer the consequences of Governor Yusuf’s action. For us, this is politics taken too far. All we expected the governor to have done was to have adhered to the rule of law.”

Recall that Justice Simon Amobeda had restrained INEC from issuing voter registers to KANSIEC, while ordering the security agencies, including the police, DSS and civil defence, from participating in the proposed election.

The court ruled that the KANSIEC chairman and other members of the commission were card-carrying members of the ruling New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and were also not civil servants above Grade Level 14.

On the other hand, the current administration approached the Kano State High Court, which issued a counter order last Friday, directing KANSIEC to go ahead with the poll.

The court, in a judgment by Justice Sanusi Ma’aji, issued the order in a matter filed by KANSIEC against the APC and 13 other defendants.

It held that KANSIEC is empowered by the provisions of the Constitution to conduct, supervise, and hold local government elections across the 44 council areas of the state.

Justice Ma’aji held that any attempt to truncate the process of conducting the poll amounts to nullity.

This is even as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has offered reasons for shunning the election. It equally refuted the alleged alignment with the Kwankwasiyya political movement in Kano.

Addressing a press conference yesterday, the State Party Chairman, Yusuf Ado Kibiya, clarified that the decision to steer clear of the council poll was borne out of “lack of credibility in the process.

He claimed that the entire exercise lacked democratic credence, adding that participating would rather amount to a waste of time and resources.

“The democratic process in the last local government election was truncated. It was not a free and fair election, and that’s the more reason why we decided to steer clear in order not to waste our time,” Kibiya alleged.

Responding to the question of where his allegiance presently lies, being a former commissioner under the first administration of Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the new PDP chairman was quick to dissociate himself from political alignment with Kwankwaso and his movement.

He declared that former Minister of Education, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, who is a leader of PDP in Kano, remains his political leader in the state, although acknowledged his previous association with Kwankwaso during his first tenure.