Kaduna APC Crisis: El-Rufai Faction Petitions Security Agencies Against Hunkuyi Faction

John Shiklam in Kaduna

Acting Secretary of the Kaduna State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Yahaya Baba Pate, has disclosed that security agencies would soon take action against the Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi-led faction of the party.
Pate belongs to the faction of the party loyal to the state Governor, Nasir El-Rufai.

Recently, the state government demolished the secretariat of the Hunkuyi-led faction on allegations of violations of land use laws.

Speaking with journalists wednesday in Kaduna, Pate said a petition had already been sent to the state Police Commissioner and the state Director of the Department of Security Services (DSS) for “appropriate action against the so-called faction members and their leaders.”

He said: “The so-called faction members are impostors; we don’t know them in APC; they are not recognised by the national body of our party; there is only one APC in Kaduna State led by Alhaji Shuaibu Idris.

“I want to let you know that we have written a petition to the police commissioner and director of DSS, and we are very sure that within the next few days, the security agencies will take necessary action against the so-called factional members that are parading themselves as members and leaders of our party.

“We are calling on our members to disregard any information from those impostors as APC is one in Kaduna State.”

Pate disclosed that 100 chairmanship and 350 councillorship aspirants from his faction of the party have purchased nomination forms to contest for the local government elections schedule for May 12, 2018.

He said the large crowd of supporters that had been accompanying aspirants to the secretariat to pick nomination forms was an indication that there is no faction in the party.

Also speaking, the state Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and member of the APC Screening Committee for local government primary elections, Prof. Kabir Mato, said the people of the state are with the state government and the leadership of the party in the state.

“It is not just about people putting up structures and saying this is their alternate party office. This is the product of this lacuna that we have in the constitution that the moment you have issues in a political party, members of that political party are free to move,” he said.

This, according to him, “Breeds a lot of political traders who, in a view to cause trouble and do so many things as long as their selfish desires are not fulfilled, as long as their ambition which in so many cases are selfish are not fulfilled, then let the whole building collapse.

“But in Kaduna State, it will not happen and it is not happening, so like I said, anybody can just wake up in the morning and make announcements but there are rules of engagement.”

Mato maintained that the “APC is not a lawless organisation, it is an organisation of very civilized people led by very competent and tested hands within the Nigerian political arena, so anybody within the party that feels aggrieved has the necessary processes and rules of the political party to follow, and if you don’t follow and you simply desire to just open office somewhere, you are leading a faction, and I think you are merely wasting your time.”