Concrete facts have emerged on the sudden resignation of the ruling All Progressives Congress’ National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, on Friday.
A reliable source disclosed that Ganduje quit his APC chairmanship position over the reported move by former Kano State governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, to join the ruling party.
According to reliable party sources, as of 3pm on Friday, Ganduje was said to have been threatening to resign following an alleged agreement between President Bola Tinubu and Kwankwaso for the 2023 New Nigeria Peoples Party to join the ruling APC.
Inside sources said all the principal officers of the APC, including the National Secretary, Ajibola Basiru, made strenuous efforts to prevail on Ganduje not to resign, but he was determined to quit.
But reliable sources have also linked Ganduje’s resignation to permutations ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
He’s said to be one of the two prominent politicians to be sacrificed by the ruling party to enable it retain power at the centre in 2027.
He was, however, said to have been forced to resign as party chairman to enable the 2023 presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who is also his political arch- enemy to join the ruling party. Kwankwaso himself was said to have given Tinubu that condition so that he could easily assume the leadership of the APC in Kano after his defection into the ruling party.
It was learnt from the sources that the head of one of the security agencies was at Ganduje’s residence around 2 a.m. on Friday to demand his resignation letter.
“We are all shocked. We didn’t see it coming,” a source close to the immediate past chairman, Ganduje.
The source further confirmed that a governor from the North East and a prominent politician from the North West who is very close to the president, visited Ganduje on Friday “apparently to console him” on his “forced” resignation as its national chairman.
Another source said that the APC National Chairman caved in to intense pressure mounted by the stakeholders of the party in the North-Central zone and eventually threw in the towel on Friday.
The North-Central has been clamouring and even lately intensified efforts to have the position of the party’s National Chairman returned to the region.
Another reason behind Ganduje’s sudden resignation was the increasing internal opposition to his style of leadership, it was also reliably gathered.
Recall that the former Kano State governor, on Friday, resigned as APC National Chairman with immediate effect.
But Ganduje, in his resignation letter, it was learnt stated that he resigned due to health issues, noting that he needed to focus on his well-being.
Bashir Ahmad, a former media aide to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, on Friday, disclosed
Ganduje’s resignation in a post on X.
Ahmad wrote, “The National Chairman of our great party, the All Progressives Congress(APC), Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has resigned from his position, effective immediately, as confirmed by multiple sources.”
Meanwhile, the APC has maintained silence over the reported resignation of its National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje.
Attempt to get the APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, to comment on the development proved abortive as he did not pick his calls. Morka also did not return text messages sent to his mobile number as of the time of filing this report.
