**says Kano taxpayers’ money not for political wars
The Arewa Peace and Development Initiative (APDI) has fingered Governor Abba Yusuf at the centre of a purported plot to sack Alhaji Umar Ganduje as the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The group further raised an alarm over a looming crisis in Kano State and the entire north over Governor Yusuf’s perceived political vendetta and witch-hunt of his predecessor.
The Arewa group, which made this known at a press conference on Tuesday, also alleged that Governor Yusuf has diverted taxpayer’s to sponsor a series of protests, rallies and press conferences against Ganduje.
In his address, Yakubu Dauda, the group’s convener claimed that the goal is to taint the personality of the APC National Chairman to a point where President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is forced to remove him from office.
“We have pondered the incentives that would make grown men behave in such an irresponsible manner but could only come to the conclusion that these men are desperate to eliminate Ganduje from the equation to pave the way for them to defect to the APC,” the statement added.
“Some of their associates have hinted that even though they see no future for the NNPP in the 2027 General Elections both men are uncomfortable with being Ganduje’s underlings in the APC.For us in the Arewa Peace and Development Initiative, our concerns are many.
“First, we are worried about the implications of this kind of nefarious tactics for our polity, a situation where a political party, in this case, the NNPP, is allowed to criminally impersonate another party, the APC, to torpedo the latter’s leadership is utterly dangerous, condemnable, irresponsible and must not be allowed.
“Secondly, we are worried about what Governor Yusuf and Kwankwaso plotted in planning violent crisis and unrest in Kano state is dangerous for the very reason that the violence they were bringing to the streets would most likely get out of control and spill to other Arewa states.
“Given the other security threats and issues confronting Arewa such despicable desperation has no place in our current socio-political configuration such that the north must rise as one to exact consequences from Governor Yusuf and Kwankwaso for daring to undermine our collective wellbeing in such a manner.
“Furthermore, it is our firm belief that the people of Kano State deserve better. The money from their taxes and the state’s commonwealth should not be converted into a war chest from which some people, including those without any business with the state’s coffers, deploy to pursue their ambitions.”
The group, therefore, called on the APC at the state and national level to diligently pursue the investigation and prosecution of those who purported to have acted as the executives of the party’s Ganduje Ward to discourage the repeat of such by any other political bloc in Nigeria.
It further demanded a comprehensive probe to unravel other people involved in the sham pulled by the Ganduje Ward Executive with a view to getting them to provide law enforcement agencies with information to stop the planned crisis.
