I have done my best for APC — Tinubu’s campaign group DG dumps APC 

The Director-General of the Tinubu Support Group, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has dumped the All Progressives Congress.

He announced this via his Twitter handle on Saturday.

The former federal lawmaker said he would announce his new party soon.

“I have done my best for APC. It’s time to move on. I will announce my new political party within the next 24 hours Insha Allah. I will make a formal statement in due course,” he tweeted.

Jibrin is a Nigerian politician, businessman, academic, and former member of the Nigerian House of Representatives, who has been campaigning vigorously for APC presidential aspirant, Bola Tinubu.

In March 2015, Jibrin contested and got re-elected to the House of Representatives. He was an aspirant for the Speakership of the House but later stepped down for Yakubu Dogara, who went on to win, and emerged Speaker of the eighth Assembly.

He was an APC member who represented the Kiru/Bebeji Federal Constituency of Kano State.

Jibrin was the core sponsor and main supporter of the Yakubu Dogara’s eighth Assembly speakership aspiration that led to his emergence.

Dogara later appointed Jibrin as the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, a position he held from 2015 until his resignation in 2016.

A few months after his resignation, Jibrin was suspended by Dogara after a scandal in which he accused the leadership of the lower house of parliament of padding the annual budget and driving corruption.

The suspension lasted for one legislative year, ending in March 2018 after Jibrin reportedly apologised to the House.

Jibrin who had initially been re-elected to his parliamentary seat in the 2019 elections lost in the re-run held in January 2020.

He polled 13,587 votes, losing to the People Democratic Party’s candidate Ali Datti-Yako who had 48,601 votes.

The Tinubu campaign DG announced his decision to leave APC barely 24 hours after the Supreme Court upheld Governor Abdullahi Ganduje-led factional leadership of the APC in Kano State.

The apex court, in a lead judgment delivered by Justice Inyang Okoro, on Friday, held that the appeal against the earlier judgments of the Court of Appeal in Abuja lacked merit and as such dismissed.

The appeals followed two rulings of an FCT High Court which upheld ward and local government congresses won by the faction loyal to Ibrahim Shekarau and Senator Jibril Barau (Kano North) and numbering 17,908 and 1,319 members, respectively.

A faction of the APC loyal to former Kano State governor Shekarau had been in a leadership battle with the Ganduje’s group.

While Ganduje’s group produced Abdullahi Abbas as state chairman, Shekarau’s camp elected Haruna Danzago to the same position.

The Court of Appeal had in February dismissed three appeals that were lodged over the originating summons wrongly commenced in Abuja.

It ruled in favour of the Ganduje’s faction and also said the lower court had no jurisdiction as only the leadership of a political party could resolve disputes arising from its internal affairs, in line with its constitution.

The appellate court said the matter was an internal affair of the APC.

An Abuja High Court voided the congresses following a challenge in the suit filed by a group led by Shekarau.

The two factions had held parallel congresses and produced two sets of state executives on Oct. 18, 2021.

The national leadership of the party, however, recognised the congresses of the Ganduje group, leading to the other faction heading to the court.

The FCT High Court, on November 30, declared the congress conducted by the plaintiffs as valid and the officials it produced as the duly elected leaders of the APC in the state.

It similarly, on December 17, affirmed its decision by rejecting a motion filed by the Ganduje faction asking the court to stay the execution and set aside the judgment.

The judge, Hamza Muazu, further imposed a fine of N1 million against the plaintiffs for filing “a frivolous and time-wasting motion” by asking the court to set aside its judgment and stay the execution on the local government congresses.

The Ganduje faction had filed the motions following its appeal regarding the matter.

The faction subsequently transmitted the records of appeal to the Court of Appeal, a crucial procedural step that sets the stage for the hearing of the appeal.

Muazu struck out the applications on the basis that he had lost jurisdiction to hear the case after the records of appeal were transmitted to the Court of Appeal. (Courtesy, excluding headline, The PUNCH)