Author: The Nation

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano State yesterday urged Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf to wait for the Supreme Court judgment on his appeal challenging his sack.

It also urged the governor to reign in his supporters who have been staging pre-emptive protests.

The party said Yusuf was bankrolling “stage-managed protests designed to create tension in the state and “make it look like all is not well.”

“Stop wasting Kano’s meagre resources and wait for the Supreme Court judgment,” Dr Ilyasu Musa Kwankwaso, an ex-Commissioner for Rural and Community Development, who spoke for APC, said.

Kwankwaso, who addressed a press conference in Kano, reminded Yusuf and the public how the APC was declared the winner of the March 18 governorship poll and its candidate Dr. Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna declared as the duly elected governor.

“The same judgment is reaffirmed by the Appeal Court in addition to the judgment declaring Abba Kabir Yusuf as not being a member of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) at the time the election was held.

“These judgments were passed in accordance with the constitutional provisions and the Electoral Act,” he said.

The former commissioner accused the NNPP and the Kwankwasiyya Movement of “engaging in massive propaganda, thereby insulting the judiciary and trying to instigate political violence in Kano.”

“They (NNPP) spread false claims that Kano is facing serious tension by funding patches of protests and rallies across the metropolis.

“This is in violation of the Peace Accord that was signed at the Police Command recently, part of which has banned such public assemblies.

“I wish to state in clear terms that the peace and tranquillity enjoyed in Kano, with everyone going about his daily business, is a testament that it is not true that there is any tension in the state.”

“It is the sponsored protests that are used to falsely create a picture of crises in the state.

“In the meantime, the NNPP is wasting Kano’s meagre resources chasing shadows by taking political issues of the country that are rooted in the Nigerian Laws to ECOWAS, EU, US and other places instead of waiting for the decision of the Supreme Court of the land.

“The worst part of this is that the NNPP is not allowing the teeming masses to rest again.

“After demolishing their billions of Naira worth of property illegally, they are now sponsoring innocent youths to cause tension and chaos in the state

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“Kano people cannot be cajoled using sponsored protests because they believe that it is Allah that gives power to whom He wishes and takes it from whom He wishes, and if He takes it from Abba Kabir Yusuf and gives it to Nasiru Yusu Gawuna, so be it.”

Iliyasu noted that the people of Kano were with APC, Gawuna and the national chairman Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.

He said: “We won the election and the court detected the invalid votes they (NNPP) mischievously placed during the polls and cancelled them and our victory was returned to us.

“All the protests they are staging are fake and with the deliberate intention of heating the polity and creating undue tension where there is none.

“Everyone is going about his daily business except those paid crowds trying to create tension. After all, who will come out to protest because the court has sacked Abba Yusuf, after demolishing their property?

“This is just a sign that the end has come for them, that is why they are all over the place trying to create unnecessary tension.”