Kaduna APC crisis festers

The crisis rocking the Kaduna chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) continued to fester as a faction of the party yesterday stormed the Abuja National Secretariat of the party to demand an outright cancellation of the delegate list from the state.

The group led by Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi who submitted a petition to the National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, claimed that the process of the congress was in clear violation of the guidelines issued by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party.

Hunkuyi particularly accused the Political Adviser to Governor Ahmad Nasir El-Rufai , Mr Uba Sani of single-handedly compiling the delegates lists for the upcoming national convention of the party at the Kaduna Government House without allowing supporters of the party across the state to exercise their voting rights.

“We therefore ask the state congress committee and APC leadership to do the obvious and declare the kangaroo process a nullity; reappoint a very credible team of state congress committee for Kaduna, convene a briefing of the stakeholders at the proper venue on a date to be appointed by the NWC and follow strictly all the guidelines as provided by the party for the purpose of delegates election at all the 23 local government areas of Kaduna state,” he said.

Rights activist and Senator representing Kaduna central district, Shehu Sani pointed accusing fingers at El-Rufai as the brain behind the violence unleashed on members of his faction last weekend in Kaduna.

Recalling how the list was doctored allegedly at the behest of El-Rufai, he enjoined the national leadership to set up an investigation panel to bring the perpetrators of that violence to book.

He noted, “We are here for two reasons. First is to register our objection to the attempt by the Kaduna State government under the leadership of governor El-Rufai to write the names of delegates inside the room and send them to the national leadership as delegates for the national convention.

“We are opposed to that and our concern is the fact that the guidelines of the party stipulates that delegates should be elected or emerge through consensus. But none was followed. They sat down in the palace of their thugs, write names and send it to Abuja for us to accept hook, line and sinker, but that will never happen.

“If we will go into history, we will recall that this was the seed of destruction of the PDP where individuals consider themselves as gods and very other person slave. That will never happen in Kaduna State. We are here to present our case and to appeal to the national leadership to intervene on the Kaduna issue before it is too late.

“Secondly, we are also here to state it very clearly to the national leadership that we are under siege in Kaduna. The use of thugs and violence by agents and close associates of the governor is one thing we cannot tolerate. Sponsored thugs last weekend besieged the NUJ Secretariat in Kaduna, raided the secretariat, destroyed property, attacked the journalists and us and left a journalist, Lawal Mohammed in the pool of his own blood.

“If we go back to history, I want to say that if we continue in this part where one person feels he is a god everybody must bow down before and worship him. We are simply repeating the very problem that destroyed the party we ejected out of power.

“If this country has to change, if our party has to provide that vehicle for change, then there should be change in the way and manner we do our politics. People who resort to the use of violence or thugs to annihilate or liquidate perceived political opponents are on the wrong side of history.

“We are not agents of violence, we are loyal party men and women and we are saying it very clear to all Nigerians and to this party that if this party has to win the 2019 general elections, it must, apart from fulfilling our campaign promises, has to set an example for discipline for comradeship for self if obligation to members as President Muhammadu Buhari has set example and show us the way.”

The petition was signed by Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi, Senator Shehu Sani and Alhaji Tijjani Ramallah and copied to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Abuja, the Resident Electoral Commission in Kaduna and all members of the National Working Committee.