Refusal Of APC Presidential Candidate, Maj-Gen. Muhammad Buhari, To Recognize Alhaji Umar Ganduje, Anointed By Rabiu Kwankwaso, As His Successor In Kano State, Is Now Tearing The Party ApartAll is not well and the centre is not holding out well for the Kano state chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC), as Major-General Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to recognize Alhaji Umar Ganduje, incumbent deputy governor, and candidate of the party for the governorship election, has factionalized the party. Buhari bluntly refused to present the party’s flag to Ganduje during his campaign rally at the Kano Township stadium recently.
Flag presentation by presidential candidate of a political party, to governorship candidates, is a symbolic gesture of approval. However, The UNION learnt from impeccable sources in Kano that the Buhari camp is unhappy over how Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso single-handedly selected his deputy as the standard-bearer, against the wish of other stakeholders of the party in Kano. This, The UNION learnt, has led to a frosty relation between Buhari and Kwankwaso, forcing the Buhari camp to also accuse Kwankwaso of being a mole in the APC, working steadily for the PDP.According to our source, the Buhari camp is also fingering Kwankwaso as mastermind of the certificate scandal now threatening to tear down whatever is left of the general’s integrity. Insiders to the blossoming Kano crisis suggest that Kwankwaso may have exposed Buhari as part of a wider plot to seek his replacement. The plot, according to insiders, is that Kwankwaso is angling for Buhari to step down on account of the scandal so that he could take over as the presidential candidate having placed second in the primary election of the party.
According to our source, Buhari is said to be very uncomfortable, and angry, with the deafening noise of the Kwankwasiyya movement, which members are said to be already hugging the limelight as though their principal, Kwankwaso, had successon ground, altered the situation, as they successfully chased the youths away, but not without injuries to some of security personnel. A vehicle carrying the DSS officials had its windshield smashed with tones causing bodily harm on the occupants. Six of the occupants were rushed to a nearby hospital. Four of them who sustained minor injuries were treated and discharged immediately. Another two, a lady and a man, who had deep cuts on their heads, were however admitted for further care. They were yet to leave hospital as at the time of filing this report. Officials told our reporter on ground that the two seriously wounded officers will be flown back to Abuja for further treatment as soon as possible. •Buhari •Kwankwaso fully supplanted Buhari as the party’s candidate.
The UNION was told that the crowd that graced the APC rally had actually massed in anticipation that Buhari would announce his withdrawal from the race and replacement with Kwankwaso. Efforts being made to resolve the crisis, our source maintains, met a brick wall with the rigid position of Buhari who believes that without him the APC is only an empty shell. Kwankwanso on his part believes that without his followers in Kano State the Buhari presidential ambition is as good as dead. Party leaders are afraid that the tragedy that befell Buhari’s former party, CPC, now defunct, will become the fate of APC due to Buhari’s highhandedness. It would be recalled that even as Mohammed Abacha was the popular candidate for Kano governorship race under CPC Buhari opted for Jafaar Isa, a retired soldier like himself. In the end, the party lost the 2011 election woefully. Buhari has even threatened to go it alone and damn what he termed as the sabotage of fifth columnists.
APC faithful are only hoping that the party’s leader, Bola Tinubu, would use his control of the media to paper over the cracks and keep the crisis out of press limelight. The Union also learnt that the Kwankwasiyya adherents are also mindful of Buhari’s health and are apprehensive of the toll a strenuous campaign schedule is taking on him. It was gathered that Buhari’s loyalists are also blaming Kwankwaso and his group for insights into Buhari’s health. But spokesman of the Buhari Campaign Organization, Malam Shehu Garba, said the situation was not as being painted. He told The UNION in a telephone chat that the crowd at the stadium may have hindered Ganduje’s approach to the podium to collect the flag.
According to him, the crowd was so much that the party leaders had to hurriedly end the programme to avoid casualties. Though he confirmed that no less than 40 persons fainted at the stadium and had to be stretchered out, he however said the party members are 100 percent behind Buhari. “Nothing takes the support away from him. The party is 100 percent behind Buhari. Our leaders showed rare courage to have come out to be with him on that day. The crowd was massive that movement was difficult. So, it is not impossible that the candidate was hindered from reaching the podium by the crowd”, he said. Confirming the schism, National Coordinator of Concerned APC Stakeholders, Alhaji Bashir Mohammed, who spoke with newsmen yesterday in Abuja said the crisis which has already polarised the party along loyalty lines is as a result of the high handedness, viciousness and undemocratic posture of the presidential candidate.
The group alleged that Gen. Buhari has refused to recognize any other power bloc within the party especially the Kwankwasiya movement which is acclaimed to be one of the biggest blocs in the party nationwide and thereby forcing other members of the party to scamper for greener pasture elsewhere.Mohammed said: “Political watchers have attributed his refusal to handover the party’s flag to the state governorship aspirant, Alhaji Umar Ganduje during the just concluded presidential rally, as a fall out of this feud as he was not disposed to Ganduje ‘ s emergence owing to the latter’s membership of the Kwankwasiya. “This rivalry many believe has been in existence since the founding of the APC where legacy members of the party were not comfortable with the newcomers whom they claimed had come to take their place. “It has also been gathered that the lack of trust between Kwankwaso and Buhari may also stem from the latter’s comments in 2010 when he called the General a serial coupist.” According to Mohammed, Buhari’s behaviour has brought about irreconcilable divisions within the party. He said Buhari had refused to recognise Ganduje because he was not the retired general’s choice for the ticket and warned he has once again used his hands to destroy whatever votes he was counting on Kano APC to deliver to him as many have gone their ways.
While reminding the four time presidential aspirant of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), experience “where he forced one of his loyalists Col. Jafaar on the people even as Mohammed Abacha was the preferred candidate, which cost him the elections”, Mohammed further explained that the attempt by Buhari to always reward those who helped him in plotting coup in the army with every given opportunity is not acceptable to anybody in the Kwankwasiya movement in particular and Nigeria in general.” Speaking further the party stalwart added that the divisions within the party caused by the ‘Buhariyyas’ as they are fondly referred to was in the first place should have been avoidable but the General’s insistence on unpopular issues in a democracy has proven to the whole world that he is not yet ready for the job of governing Nigeria under a rigid constitution and rule of law.
He also blamed the crisis on rumour mongers who have began accusing Kwankwaso of instigating the recent certificate scandal to ensure Buhari is substituted for another northerner which most likely would have been him. He said detractors of the party had already credited Kwankwaso’s usual nocturnal meetings to scheming geared at unseating or eventually betraying Buhari.He lamented that every attempt to get the national secretariat of the party to intervene has failed which has forced members to believe that the cult-like leadership of the party at Abuja is deceiving Nigerians with change as a slogan and may be up to something terrible at the end of the day. He therefore told Buhari to forget the cooperation of Kano people at the poll as the people have already gone their separate ways except Buhari is substituted with any other candidate before the election proper.
http://theunion.com.ng/feb-14-buhari-kwankwaso-tear-apc-apart/
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