The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that it is not aware of leadership change in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Senior officials of the electoral body told Daily Trust on Thursday that this has been communicated to the party in the commission’s response to a letter written to it by the Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, who is the acting chairman of the party’s caretaker committee.
The officials pleaded not to be named as they were not authorised to speak on the matter.Governor Sani Bello had on Wednesday written INEC in his capacity as the acting national chairman of the APC’s Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) inviting the commission to their National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting scheduled for next week Thursday via zoom.
Sani Bello had on Monday in Abuja assumed the APC leadership after President Muhammadu Buhari allegedly approved the removal of the Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, as the chairman of the CECPC and in his stead, okayed his Niger State counterpart as a replacement.
This has led to controversy because Sani Bello had on Monday shortly after presiding over meetings at the APC national secretariat said he was only acting as chairman.
However, on Wednesday, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State said Buni who is on a medical trip in Dubai had been removed at the instance of President Buhari.
He blamed Buni for the widening crisis in the party and said that the Yobe governor had been removed for good and that Sani Bello was fully in charge with the support of at least 19 governors of the ruling party.
But curiously, a letter surfaced yesterday purportedly from Buni officially handing over to Bello to act while he (the Yobe governor) was away. The authenticity of the letter could not be independently verified by this newspaper.
Responding to the claim, Governor Sani Bello said there was nothing like that.
