Some leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna State have opened a new secretariat for the party in the state.

The members also suspended three chieftains of the party and issued a query to Governor Nasir el-Rufai for alleged “anti-party activities.”

Shuaibu Inuwa Wada, who described himself as the acting State Chairman of the APC, said the need to relocate the state secretariat of the party to No.11b Sambo Road, Kaduna, was due to alleged constant harassment of party members seen as “threat to the interest of a few in the party.” 

He stated this at a briefing which was attended by Senator Suleiman Othman Hunkuyi (APC, Kaduna North).

However, in a swift reaction, Governor El-Rufai said he would not heed to what he described as “attention-seeking gambits of desperate demystified politicians.”

Wada, at the briefing, slammed “18-months suspension” on the Political Adviser to the Governor, Malam Uba Sani; the acting Secretary of the party, Salisu Tanko Wusono, and the state Commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Audu Kwaru, for alleged anti-party posturing.

Wada said, “Governor El-Rufai has been queried and we are expecting him to answer the query within 48 hours. Failure to do that, the state working committee will sit down and deliberate. We queried Malam Nasiru el-Rufai for his anti-party activities and anti-human activities. The letters would be delivered to these personalities today,” he said.

Gov. El-Rufai, speaking though his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Samuel Aruwa, warned that “rascally” actions undertaken in the hope of getting a lifeline from reconciliation moves would not be rewarded.

He said, “The government had been made aware of the boastful and pompous claims of Senator Suleiman Othman Hunkuyi, that he will change the leadership of Kaduna State in 2019 by installing himself as governor.

“This senator has failed to understand that you cannot create party executives at your whim. It is the party’s prerogative to consider appropriate responses to this breach of discipline. But as a government, we view these actions as the needless drama of political traders.

“Hunkuyi has in three previous elections failed to get himself elected as governor. Yet he flaunts false claims that it was him that got Malam Nasir el-Rufai elected in 2015.

“In 2015, it was God Almighty and the good people of Kaduna State that made Malam El-Rufai governor and Hunkuyi a senator. It appears that Hunkuyi has forgotten how his previous attempts to be governor in 2003, 2007 and 2011 failed miserably. With the Almighty’s gracious help, his association with the El-Rufai brand helped get him elected as senator in 2015,” he said.