Only APC NWC has the power to suspend Ganduje – legal advisor

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Legal Adviser, Abdulkarim Kana, on Tuesday clarified that the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) has the power to appoint its national chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, to suspend.

Kana made this clarification amid reactions to the recent controversial suspension of Ganduje by various factional leaders in his district while speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme.

New Telegraph recalls that the two factions of Ganduje community had suspended the membership of the incumbent state chairman of the party over alleged corruption and other offenses during his tenure as governor of Kano State.

However, the APC state working committee in Kano immediately revoked the suspension and took disciplinary action against the station managers.

A Federal Court sitting in Kano also issued an ex parte order temporarily suspending the implementation of the stay pending the hearing and determination of the case.

A Kano State High Court judge, who had earlier upheld Ganduje’s suspension, also set aside the order suspending the former Kano state governor as national chairman of the APC.

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Commenting on the development, Kana said no organ of the party other than the NWC has the right to suspend a member.

He pointed out that according to the party’s constitution, all procedures must be followed before such an action can be carried out.

“All such procedures must be exhausted for such penalties to be imposed but as a penalty pending the completion of an investigation, no body of the APC has the power to suspend a member pending investigation except the National Working Committee,” he said.

Kana described those who suspended Ganduje as “random people” and said they were not members of the ruling party.

He said: “I knew about a few random people. They are not community leaders of Ganduje community and they are not community leaders from anywhere other than what the leaders will hear.

“We discovered that. And that’s why, from the very beginning, when we became aware of this information, the first thing we did was investigate and we set up a mechanism within the party to confirm whether there were such allegations.

“It is a serious allegation. That a party body would make such a daring decision. We conducted our investigations and it didn’t take us long to discover that the people alleged to have suspended the state chairman are not even members of the party’s Executive Committee in Ganduje District and none of these members are Ward Excos as we know.

“My office has decided to go beyond merely receiving reports from the relevant organs on the authenticity of the claim. We asked the State Working Committee to come to Abuja with the community Excos members so that we could interview them, which we did and to our surprise, I insisted that they come with their IDs and their voters’ cards.

“And when they came, we compared their faces with the IDs and their names and found that those who had appeared on television claiming that those names were theirs were not, and that is how serious the matter is.”

“And that is why we wasted no time in engaging the security forces and authorities to investigate why these individuals would make such claims. They are fraudsters.

“That’s exactly what they are. And we have also received a specific complaint made to the police by the authentic community members of the party and I think the matter is currently with the police for investigation.”

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