‘He’s on his own’: We did not endorse Kwankwaso as APC leader – Shekarau warns
The Shekarau faction of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in Kano has dissociated itself from endorsing Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso as leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
This endorsement was reportedly made by former presidential candidate of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC), Bashir Othman Tofa, state secretary of the party, Rabiu Bako and others.
During a press conference held at the Kano residence of Ibrahim Shekarau, the chairman of the defunct ANPP, Sani Hashim Hotoro, said that the group that paid a courtesy visit to Kwankwaso and identified with him as APC leader, were on their own.
Leadership report:
According to him, Alhaji Othman Tofa was an elder in the party, old ANPP who had previously declined to serve in the merger committee of the ANPP.
He added that members of ANPP in the state had written to APC national secretariat conveying their concern and the way forward, saying they were waiting the national body
of APC to respond.
He said, “It is in the public knowledge that, members of the APC coming from the defunct ANPP Kano state, have on December 18, 2013 under former Kano governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau delivered a letter to the APC interim leadership in Abuja conveying our concern and the way forward.
We requested for a clarification of the rumour going round that the five aggrieved new PDP governors who decided to decamp to APC did so as a result of an alleged agreement they reached with a section of the APC leadership that they will be given special privileges that are clearly against all fairness and democratic norms”.
According to him, the alleged privilege included state leadership of the party automatic tickets for all their members of the state and the national assemblies and also handling the registration of members.
Hotoro said that all the privileges were rejected by the APC members of the merging parties in all the affected five states.
He further maintained that as far as ANPP faction of APC was concerned, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau is the leader of the party in the state, according to him they have no intention whatsoever to decamp to any other party claiming that they would remain in APC pending the outcome of the letter sent to the national secretariat of the party.
