SCORES of demonstrators on Thursday stormed the national secretariat of the All Progressives Congress in Abuja, to demand the resignation of the National Chairman, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje.
The protesters hinged their request on the recent suspension of Ganduje by a faction of his ward executive and the bribery allegation levelled against him by the Kano State government.
reports that on Monday, April 15, 2024, the APC executive of Ganduje ward in the Dawakin Tofa Local Government of Kano State suspended Ganduje, a move that was quickly thwarted by the local government and state chapters of the party, which suspended the ward executive and eventually sacked them.
The development resulted in legal tussles with the Kano State High Court granting an ex parte order restraining Ganduje from parading himself as a member of the party, leading the embattled national chairman to get a counter ex parte order from the Federal High Court in Kano presided over by Justice A. M. Liman, who ruled that the purported suspension should not be implemented until the case was heard and determined.
On Monday, APC chairmen across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory backed Ganduje to continue as the party’s national chairman, while the ex-Kano governor described his suspension as ‘African magic’.
In a new twist to the development, some protesters, on Thursday, besieged the national secretariat of the party, demanding that Ganduje must be replaced with a chieftain of the party from the North Central region, to settle the marginalisation claim in the party.
Chanting solidarity songs and displaying banners with different inscriptions, the protesters appealed to President Bola Tinubu and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, to consider returning the leadership of the party to North Central.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja, the protesters, under the aegis of Concerned North Central APC Stakeholders, lamented that the continued stay of Ganduje in office was a clear violation of the zoning process in the party.
The leader of the demonstrators, Mohammed Saba, said unlike the 37 APC state chairmen, his people in the North Central had passed a vote of no confidence in Ganduje and want him out of office.
Saba reiterated that the people of the North Central felt betrayed when the position of the APC national chairman was hijacked, following the exit of Senator Abdullahi Adamu, despite the zone giving President Bola Tinubu the third highest votes after the North-West and the South-West during the 2023 presidential election.
He said, “We, the North-Central APC Concerned Stakeholders, have resolved to unanimously agitate for our rights and reclaim our mandate which was handed unto us by the national convention of our great Party in 2022.
“Various sections of our constitution have established the procedure for replacing an executive member at all levels of the party in the event of death, resignation, incapacitation or expulsion from the party by any executive member.
“It is a fact that the emergence of Dr Umar Ganduje as national chairman was done against the spirit and soul of the APC, which is the constitution of our great party. This singular act has impacted negatively on us as a people in the North Central.
“We feel betrayed and spat because we gave President Bola Tinubu the third highest votes after the North-West and the South-West in the country, which put us in a better position to enjoy the fruit of our labour.
“We, therefore, demand that Dr Umar Ganduje resign immediately and stop parading himself as the national chairman of our great party. The zoning arrangements made by the national convention in 2022, which zoned the office of the national chairman to the North-Central be respected by the NEC and all other organs of the party and all governors elected on the platform of the APC in the North Central should wake up from their slumber and mobilise their members against this impunity until Ganduje resigns as the national chairman.”
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