Crisis in Suleja local government after ward congress election of the APC is threatening to consume the opposition in Niger state. The failure of the national body of the party to respond to the Suleja crisis amidst accusation of conspiracy by the state leadership and the existence of PDP surrogates have set APC in the state on the path of doom even before the 2015 general elections. In this interview, former chairman of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in Niger state, an elder and stakeholder of APC, Alhaji Umar Shuaibu, reviews the genesis of the crisis and concludes that APC is sitting on a keg of gun powder in Suleja.
We have crisis at hand
The situation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Suleja Local Government of Niger state is that, the party has very strong supporters’ base but it is engulfed in leadership crisis because of the manner in which the ward congress for the party leadership was mishandled. There are no authentic officials for the party at the ward and local government levels in Suleja now. Due to the manner of their emergence, they are not recognized by the party members. That is the situation.
The pains of stakeholders and elders
It is just unfortunate. We formed the party for the purpose of making sure that the common man has a say in Nigeria today. The APC is supposed to be an alternative to the PDP. Everybody knows what is happening in Nigeria today. So we are very much concerned about the Suleja crisis of the party. And I feel so sad to see the party that we laboured to build right from the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) before the merger now entangled in this crisis. During the time of CPC we had more coordination than what we have in the APC today. I feel very sad and it is just the handiwork of few people that want to manipulate the party for their selfish ends. As a stakeholder, I do know that many of us do not put materialism before our loyalty as politicians in the APC. Now we have people that are after materialism; they are after what they can get from the system and not what they can give the system to provide solution for the common man in Nigeria. That is the problem that those trying to destroy the party are causing for the benefit of their individual interests.
Genesis of crisis
Crisis began with the manipulation of the ward congress. There was substitution of the winners’ names with the losers by the then interim national youth leader, Abdullahi Lado. The party that proclaimed equity for all people is supposed to be free and fair, but this was not the case in the ward congresses in Suleja. In the APC ward congress election, the officials that were elected were in turn expected to elect the officials at the local government level. Unfortunately, the winners of the ward congresses were substituted with the losers and that was what caused the Suleja problem of the party. We saw result sheets that were practically cancelled, the name of the winners were cancelled and replaced by the name of the losers. Result figures were altered in favour of losers by awarding votes and fixing numbers at the front or back of original figures of the losers. For instance, one particular loser got 61 votes but because of fraud they fixed the figure ‘2’ just before the number 61, to make the loser have 261. As God will have it, the result had been announced and original certificate of return has already been given to the winner. However, while the actual winners were holding the certificates of return, their names were removed from the list secretly, by the national youth leader and his cohorts and forwarded to Minna and finally to Abuja. We complained to the state Executives of the party in Minna but our complaints were ignored by the state secretariat which decided to support the losers as ward officials. Tell me how can local government congress take place in the midst of the people who are aggrieved and felt cheated in this form? Subsequently, there was no local government congress in Suleja. Again and very unfortunately, the fraudulent people wanting to hijack the structure of the party by all means and at all cost went and submitted fictitious names of local government officials on the false claim that there was a local government congress. The fact remained that there was no local government congress in Suleja because of this volatile crisis. How can all these be happening in APC, our beloved party, the hope of the common man for progressive change in Niger state and Nigeria as a whole?
The masterminds
Of course we know those who are masterminding the crisis and they aim at killing the APC in the state, using Suleja as launching pad. In essence these masquerades are only dancing in APC clothes but having the hands of PDP. The leader of the group or kingpin is the former interim national youth leader, one Abdullahi Lado. We are not surprised at his anti-party activities because we knew his antecedent; falsification of documents. There was a judgement against him for falsification of documents by the governorship and State House of Assembly tribunal in 2008, in which he was booted out of the Niger state House of Assembly as a member on the platform of PDP. After several letters of complaint, the National Secretariat set up Appeal Panel to investigate our case. The Panel came to sit over the matter, inviting all the parties involved but when we were asked to swear by the holy Quran or the Bible according to our faith, the defendants refused to swear with the holy books after we did that. They refused to take the Quran and the Bible because they knew what they were going to say were lies and they knew the consequences of swearing by these holy books. The appeal committee chairman told them that they do not have defence for the complaints against them. The committee said that if they have defence, they must swear and that was the end of the sitting; and they wrote a report. Up till now that report has not been made public. We again wrote another serious complaint to national leadership and we did not hear from them. We are supposed to have a party that respects its rules. In the constitution of APC there is a clause that boldly states that anybody that is involved in the falsification of document is punishable by expulsion. So any person that is aiding another to falsify document has the same punishment of expulsion. In this instance case they have falsified ward and local government congresses election documents.
Niger APC Exco is accomplice
The state executives of the party are aware because we wrote a letter of complaint that should have passed through them to the national secretariat. Unfortunately the state Exco did not pass this letter on to the national level until we as the concerned stakeholders of the party in Suleja submitted the letter to the national secretariat ourselves. The state Executives knew what is happening but just kept quite. The Appeal Committee came from Abuja, the state executives hosted them and proceedings were held at the state secretariat of the party. As a result of the crisis, when they came to swear in local government officials that won election those of Suleja were excluded because there was no election. But they went behind to be giving them recognition. They are playing double standard. Those concerned took the matter to court. They went to court because all avenues to address their complaints, since doing so at the party level had been exhausted. As citizens of this country they are obliged to seek redress in the court of law. Unfortunately, the same state executives hired a lawyer to say that the court is not competent to hear the case. But a ruling was made that the court has the jurisdiction to hear the case. Again the state executives wrote a letter of expulsion to the aggrieved members that took the matter to court. How fair and how callous is this? This is what we call jungle justice. The state Exco did not have powers to expel these members from the party. There has to be a disciplinary committee first, to investigate such members to ascertain if they are guilty.
APC is supposed to live above board to respect the law of the land and respect its constitution. Let it show example that we are APC. I still have hope that if the national secretariat intervened appropriately the crisis in Suleja will be resolved. I am aware that the national secretariat is not fully aware of the extent of this crisis otherwise it would not have been in the court. We want the national secretariat to act on this matter because they are the ones to act.
APC national deputy treasurer is a PDP member digging doom for APC in Niger
The major problem is that these people causing problem in Suleja are fake members of APC. We have evidence that the names these people submitted as party officials from Suleja are actually members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). We have identified names of some of them that participated as PDP agents in the recent Niger East Senatorial bye-election. So ultimately they are not working for the success of APC in the local government and the state in general. If the national level did not address this crisis with equity and justice, it portends doom for the APC in 2015. We have the people to win the election but APC in the state needs leadership. In whatever case all we need is good leadership. But we do not have that type of leadership to make the party win in Niger state. That is the problem. Let the national body address these problems, which is all what we want. Unfortunately the same person causing problem in Niger state is the deputy national treasurer. He is the one working assiduously to make sure that the case is buried or swept under the carpet. He is still there working against the interest of the party in Niger state for his selfish interest and that of PDP.
