Katsina APC crisis deepens

The crisis rocking the Katsina State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, deepened on Thursday as one of its chieftains, Kanti Bello, declared that it had no executive committee.

He said anybody parading himself as a member of the state executive committee of the party was merely wasting his time and should be disregarded.

The Katsina State chapter of the APC had in June elected Mustapha Imuwa, a former Secretary to the Government of Katsina State, as its substantive chairman of the party.

Katsina was among the states where the party postponed its congress last May.

Mr. Bello, a former Senate Chief Whip and a leading governorship aspirant in the state, said the congress that produced Mr. Inuwa, a protégé of a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Masari, was inconclusive.

According to him, the election was only conducted for the chairmanship position even though the three identified groups in the state chapter of the party presented candidates for the various seats of the state executive.
“I want to state in very clear terms once again that we are yet to have a fully constituted state executive for the APC in Katsina State,” Mr. Bello said. “Apart from the chairman, we did not conduct election for other positions during the congress. Therefore, whoever goes about claiming to be a member of the APC state executive in Katsina is fake and should be ignored.

“We have three groups that fielded candidates for all the positions. That is the Masari group, my group and the group led by Abdulaziz, younger brother of late President Umaru Yar’Adua.

“As a way of uniting the three groups since we are all working for the growth of the party in the state, an understanding was reached by the aspirants that election should be conducted for only the chairmanship seat, while the remaining positions will be shared pro-rata among the three groups based on their electoral strength from the result of the chairmanship contest.”

The former senator said at the end of the chairmanship election allegedly manipulated by Mr. Masari’s group, Mr. Inuwa won with about 1,000 votes while Mr. Bello’s candidate scored 800 and the candidate presented by the Yar’Adua group got 192.

He added, “What should happen immediately after the emergence of the chairman in line with the agreement and in the spirit of oneness is for the rest positions to be shared in this manner – 50 per cent for them plus the chairmanship which they won; 40 per cent for my group and 10 per cent for Yar’Adua group.

“But for the Masari group to come out and say they have won everything when no election was conducted except for the chairmanship is completely unacceptable and we shall fight to the last to see that justice is done. It is either we stick to the agreement or we go back and conclude the congress by conducting proper election for the other positions.”

Mr. Bello expressed hope that with the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections over, the national leadership of the APC would intervene before it was too late.

“I spoke with our national chairman and he assured me that a committee will be set up to resolve the matter. Justice must prevail in APC because we are out to take over power from the PDP, a failed party which has meted out great injustice to Nigerians with high level of corruption in its government. I am a loyal member of APC, I remain in APC, but, we must do the right thing.”