John Adams, Minna
The crisis in the Niger State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has deepened following the arrest of the state Chairman, Engineer Jibrin Iman, by the state police command on Tuesday evening.
The arrest of the chairman follows a petition by the Financial Secretary of the party, Mallam Idris Nma Mohammed, who has accused the embattled party boss of financial misappropriation and embezzlement of the party funds amounting to over N1 billion.
Although he had been invited by police for a three-hour interrogation last week, the state party head was subsequently picked up on Tuesday evening and detained.
The arrest and detention of the chairman came barely an hour after he presided over the state working committee meeting of the party where the issue of the petition by the Financial Secretary Mallam Idris Nma Mohammed was discussed.
After the meeting, it was resolved that a five-man panel be set up to look into the action of the financial secretary for allegedly violating the party constitution.
The state working committee during its meeting was, however, silent on the allegations of financial misconduct leveled against the chairman by the fiancial secretary.
The panel is to determine if the financial secretary had violated any section of the APC constitution by divulging sensitive information to the public without exhausting laid down procedure, Imam said.
‘For a member to divulge informations about the party without the party’s consent and even went to the police thereby reneging on the laws, is anti-party. All executive members swore oath to abide by the party’s constitution.
‘The Financial Secretary is mischievous, we have set up a 5-man committee and he has been directed to appear before the committee,’ Imam said.
But few hours after the meeting of the state working committee, the financial secretary, flanked by the state auditor of the party, Malam Adamu Baba Mohammed, told journalists that the said panel by the state working committee was a kangaroo court and vowed not to appear before it.
‘The meeting of today (Tuesday) by the working committee is a kangaroo meeting. I will not appear before any kangaroo panel. I am ready to prove my allegation of corruption against the Chairman.
‘The records are there. It is very glaring to the whole world. I will not appear before any kangaroo panel,’ he stated.
The financial secretary and the auditor claim that the nearly N2 billion generated by the party from various sources including donations, monthly contributions from members, revenue from the sale of nomination forms for national, state and local government elections in the runoff of 2019 general elections and the just concluded local government elections, have been illegally withdrawn from banks and diverted to private pockets.
The duo further allege that eight vehicles donated to the party either by its local government council chairmen or legislators have either been allocated to “wrong people” or “they have totally disappeared”.
The financial secretary specifically said he raised the petition ‘in order to clear my name and conscience’, prompting him to involve the police in investigating party officials for the alleged illegal dealings.
He said he brought the matter before the chairman several times but that he ‘always shouted me down. That is why I wrote the petition.’
Apparently acting on the petition, the police in the evening of Tuesday, June 2nd, invited the chairman Alhaji Mohammed Jibrin Imam and reportedly detained him.
Imam, it was learnt, slept at the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the police and was still at the police station as at 11am on Wednesday.
State Commissioner of police Alhaji Adamu Usman confirmed that ‘we invited the chairman we are investigating him based on a petition alleging corruption against him and others.
‘We are investigating the matter and shall get to the root of it. We want to find out if there is any substance in the claims of the petitioners.
‘The Nigeria Police has the responsibility to investigate any form of criminal complaint from any citizen of the state. That is what we are doing.
‘We are handling the matter professionally to ensure that justice is done to all sides,’ Usman said.