By Chris Udochukwu
Senate Minority Whip, Senator Rufa’i Hanga (NNPP) has said that despite the disqualification of Kano electoral umpire few days to the local government elections in the state, the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) will anytime dominate the state political space because the party is on ground.
Senator Hanga stated this while reacting to the Federal High Court’s ruling on Tuesday, which disqualified Prof Sani Malumfashi as the chairman of the Kano State Independent Electoral Commission(KSIEC) and five other members of the commission.
The senate minority whip said, despite the disqualification of the electoral umpire barely four days to the local government elections in Kano, the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) will at anytime dominate the state because the party is on ground.
The federal lawmaker who spoke with journalists on Wednesday in Abuja said, what the court has succeeded in doing is “to postpone the evil days” because NNPP at the moment is a household name in Kano politics as such even if the Prof. Yakubu Mahmood-led independent national electoral commission (INEC) is drafted to conduct the elections, it won’t change anything.
Recall that the presiding Judge, Simon Amobeda, in a ruling in a matter filed by Aminu Aliyu Tiga and the All Progressives Congress (APC), held that the chairman is a card-carrying member of a political party.
The court also sacked five members of the commission for their ties with a political party in the state.
The plaintiff had alleged that the commission’s chairman and the members were card-carrying members of the New Nigeria People’s Party.
Senator Hanga said, “I am not ruling out the fact that APC are apprehensive that NNPP will win most of the local governments, the reason theirs quest to truncate the process using federal might. But tell me which state that APC is controling that another party has won even a councilor in the ongoing local government elections across the country.
“See Benue, Kogi and so many other states, so why Kano State, why NNPP,” he queried.
In the same vein, Senator Hanga whose bill on drugs scaled second reading in the senate debunked report in certain quarters that a NDLEA found drugs in the premises of a ranking Senator, saying that it was misleading and urged the public to disregards such news.
He stated that NDLEA caught a guard in one of the senator’s houses with Marijuana popularly known as Indian herm, not that it was found in his compound, a house he barely stays.
However, he said it was alarming that a government agency could accuse a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria without evidence. Notwithstanding, he said, if ordinary citizen accused them (Senators) in that manner, they could stomach it because they are representing them but not a government agency both of them are working to achieve same goal, “it’s hard to take that.”
“I am very surprised that a government agency like NDLEA can just wake up and accuse a senator, not just a senator but a ranking one in that matter without evidence. In fact, the distinguished confided in us that it was one of his security guards in one of his houses that was caught with Indian hemp, not that it was found in his house,” he said.
