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John Adams, Minna
The leadership crisis rocking the Niger state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) worsened on Thursday as a group within the party purportedly removed the state Chairman Alhaji Jibrin Imam and two others.
The two others that were removed along with the Chairman include the Secretary of the party Alhaji Mohammed Liman and Treasurer Dr. Shafi Abdulsalami.
This development is coming barely 24 hours after the state governor who is the leader of the party, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello jetted out of the state to lead the Edo state reconciliation committee of the party.
The removal of the party Executives was rectified by the 22 local government chairmen and 25 secretaries of the party, and 27 out of the 33 member State Executive Committee after their meeting which lasted several hours at a hotel in Minna on Thursday.
The group, at the meeting presided over by the state deputy chairman of the party, Alhaji Ali Kapenter replaced the chairman with Alhaji Aliyu Saidu Galkogo while Sulaiman Abdullahi Assistant State Youth leader replace Alhaji Mohammed Liman as Secretary and Dr Shafi Abdusalami the Treasurer was replaced by Saidu Madaki from the Wushishi local government area of the party.
But the embattled Chairman, Alhaji Jibrin Imam in a swift reaction described those that took the action as illegal, saying that the group are “jokers” as they have no legal right to take such action.
The meeting and the purported removal of the Executives was however done in the absence of the leader of the party in the state and Governor Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello who is in a reconciliation committee for Edo state.
The group accused the sacked officers of gross misdemeanor, abuse of office, financial recklessness and diversion of over N872m between 2014 and 2019 as reason for their action.
A zonal youth leader from Zone A, Alhaji Ibrahim Muazu who attended the meeting confirmed the story to saying “our decision is backed by the national headquarters of our party”.
According to Muazu the National Secretariat had directed “all states with crisis to go and resolve their dispute internally and with this action, we believed that the crisis is over here in Niger”.
However, the chairman who spoke to our correspondent on phone insisted that “the meeting was illegal, they don’t have any constitutional right to summon such meeting, I am the person allowed by law to call any meeting.
“Nobody presented any allegation before me nor was I invited to face any panel,” he added before describing the action as “a kangaroo meeting,” insisting also “that they didn’t exhaust all avenues provided by the party constitution, aside from this the case they are talking about is still in court, they have only taken the laws into their hands.
“I am still the chairman the Secretary is still the Secretary and the treasurer is still the treasurer, nobody has removed us. we are all in the office.”
