Katsina APC congress inconclusive, Bello insists
Over two months after the conduct of the congress of Katsina State All Progressives Congress (APC) to elect state officials of the party, Senator Kanti Bello has insisted that the exercise remains inconclusive.
In an interview in Abuja on Thursday, Bello, a two-term Senator from 2003 to 2011 and one of the leading aspirants for the Katsina APC governorship ticket for 2015, said anybody parading himself as a member of the state executive of the party should be disregarded by the public.
He maintained that election was only conducted for the chairmanship position which was won by Mustapha Muhammad Inuwa from the group led by ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Masari, as according to him, three groups presented candidates for the various seats of the state executive.
His words: “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. Apart from the chairman we did not conduct election for other positions during the congress. Therefore, whoever that 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.”
Continuing, he said: “At the end of the chairman election after serious manipulation the candidate of their (Masari) group won with about 1000. My group scored about 800 and Yar'Adua group had 192. 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% for them plus the chairmanship which they won; 40% for my group and 10% 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. Now that Ekiti and Osun elections are over, we do hope that the national body of our party will come in as fast as possible to intervene before it is 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.”
FROM MICHAEL JEGEDE
MEDIA PRACTITIONER
ABUJA