APC Kaduna looses another bigwig to PDP
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Internal crisis rocking All Progressive Congress (APC) in Kaduna seems not ending soon as key members lately began to vacate the party one after the other over what they called high handedness by party’s managers in the State.
Few days earlier, former Kaduna gubernatorial aspirant of the party, Isa Ashiru Kudan picked membership card of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and now another chieftain in the state, Alhaji Lawal Adamu Usman popularly known as ‘Mr LA’ tendered his resignation.
Usman, an acclaimed founding member of the party in Kaduna gave what he described as, indiscriminate persecutions of party members with the aim of restricting the space for their aspirations, as well as his suspension from the party alongside other chieftains as some of reasons he left.
In a resignation letter addressed to the APC Chairman of Ungwan Dosa Ward in Kaduna North Local Government, his constituency and copied, the state Governor Nasir El-Rufai, National Chairman of APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and President Muhammadu Buhari, Usman said, resigning from APC was the only principled decision that can be made in the circumstances of the many crises rocking the party in the State.
The letter read in parts; “It is with regret that I write to inform you that I have decided to resign my membership of the All Progressives Congress as from today. As you will know, I have been a member of the APC since its inception four years ago. I was one of its original founders back in 2014. I have since that time deployed ample energy, precious time and enormous resources towards the growth of the party and its eventual victories at state and federal levels.
“But here we are in 2018, just three short years after the APC’s electoral high point, and everything has gone belly up in Kaduna state. A party that was once composed of committed comrades and loyal friends – united in the struggle for change, fairness, justice and national progress – has now turned into a party at war with itself. Bitter recriminations, acrimonious rancour and false accusations have been bandied about leading to unfair and unjustifiable persecution of loyal members by a handful of favoured government cronies. The atmosphere inside the party has today turned ugly and toxic.
“A rigorous and critical analysis of the party’s internal structures and culture, of key tactical decisions, and of the party’s overall political orientation would prove that the cracks had appeared soon after the inauguration of the Malam Nasir El-Rufai’s administration when collective responsibility was jettisoned in parochial individual ego massage.
“Since that time, all known democratic norms were thrown to the winds and any form of counsel, no matter how sensible, was not tolerated. The situation degenerated steadily into a glaring rape of the sanctity of democracy as demonstrated throughout the processes leading up to the ward congresses to the local government elections and to the imposition of party executives from wards to the state levels as well as delegates to the national convention.
“These undemocratic processes were preceded by a spate of indiscriminate retributions and unfair, unjustifiable suspension of major stakeholders of the party without regards to due process and in utter disregard for the APC constitutional provisions.”
While giving his reasons to dump APC, the party Chieftain said, “first, it is the vexed issue of my purported suspension along with several other eminent party members across the state, without first organising a proper credible internal party inquiry or commission to determine our culpability or lack of it as stipulated by the party constitution. Politically and legally, we are entitled to this much, at least after all the work we have done for the party and for the sake of natural justice.
“My decision to resign from the APC is however not entirely a result of political and personal considerations, but out of conviction that this is not the party that I was involved in creating and nourishing. Nor is it a party that I want to continue to participate in. I have carefully weighed this decision and made far reaching consultations in the few months since the resort to these indiscriminate persecutions as a means of restricting the space for the aspirations of many of us.
“It seems to me that out of respect for the Kaduna state electorates and my numerous supporters, my own political integrity and my concern for the development of democracy as a whole, it is the only principled decision that can be made in the circumstances. I am therefore leaving without any bitterness towards anyone”, he maintained.