Kaduna On The Boil As APC Factional Secretariat Demolished

By Ayo Kehinde

The Demolished Secretariat

The lingering battle of supremacy between Governor Nasri el-Rufai of Kaduna State and the duo Senators, Shehu Sani, representing Central District and Suleiman Hunkuyi, representing North District, took a bad turn in the early hours of Tuesday when bulldozers allegedly working on the orders of the governor demolished the 11B Sambo street factional secretariat of the All Progressives Congress, APC, loyal to the Senators.

The inter-party squabbles assumed a dangerous dimension last week when Hunkuyi vowed to make el-Rufai 2019 ambition a nullity and joined the governor’s long drawn enemy, Sani to open the secretariat, a one storey duplex belonging to Hunkuyi .

On Sunday, the group held a meeting at the Secretariat, where they claimed to be the recognised state chapter by the APC national leadership

Shortly afterwards they teemed up with Alhaji Tijjani Ramadan, Chairman of Kaduna Restoration Group to issue what mounted to a politically quit notice to the governor.

“The battle line has been drawn; we must vote out El-Rufa’i in 2019 general elections,” said Hunkuyi in Kaduna, at a ceremony to formally unveil a forum tagged: “APC Aspirants Forum”.

Hunkuyi, who said that he might contest the Kaduna governorship seat in 2019 ”, stated that the forum was to “check and neutralise the power of incumbency”.

 

Senators Sani, Hunkuyi and Forum Chairman, Ramalan dressing the press in Kaduna recently

“We will put structures at all levels to ensure that APC followers get credible candidates that will be rallying points for all; anything less is not negotiable,” he said.

They accused the governor of being unfair to the majority of the people in the administration of social justice and economic welfare

Ramalan alleged that el-Rufai’s policies and actions were “anti-people”, and accused him of “having no regards to the wishes of those who supported his emergence as governor in 2015”.

Ramadan even went ahead to issue a warning to the Ahmed Bola Tinubu Reconciliation Committee:”We are told that an APC reconciliation team will come to Kaduna. If they want our support, El-Rufa’i should not run in 2019,” he said.

In a swift reaction, the government, in a statement by its spokesman, Samuel Aruwan, dismissed the threat of the Senators as “boastful and pompous claims made by Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi, about changing the leadership of Kaduna State in 2019 by installing himself as Governor. The Senator is seeking a lifeline, in the vain belief that ratcheting up rascally actions will bring him attention and relief from the mooted National reconciliation efforts”.

“It is clear that he can’t be cured of his obsession to be governor of Kaduna State at all cost, whether through betrayal of trust, treachery, or deceit, but he should know that the State is not for sale because ordinary people, including in Hunkuyi’s Kudan Local government area, now know that governance can work for them.

“Hunkuyi has on three previous elections failed to get himself elected as governor, yet he flaunts false claims that it was him that got El-Rufai elected in 2015”

“The APC Government of Kaduna State has boldly lived up to its manifesto commitments and principles to the people, saying, it will continue to enjoy the firm support of the party’s State Executive which is united, and committed to the hard work of bringing sustainable change, it quoted”.

This ding-dong state of affairs has heightened tension in the state with party faithfuls waiting earnestly for the arrival of the Tinubu committee in the hope that it may be able to reorders things before they develop into full-blown exchange of blows between supporters of the warring parties.