Some leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna state have accused the state governor, Nasir El-Rufai of paying party chieftains in the constituency of Senator Shehu Sani N500,000 each to suspend the Senator from the party.

Chairman of ward 10 in Kaduna South Local Government area of the state, Ado Mohammed Sani who made the allegation under the umbrella of Chairmen of APC in Local Government Areas in Kaduna, described the suspension of Senator Sani as a charade.

Sani said the ward executives who carried out the purported suspension were bribed, allegedly by El-Rufai with N500, 000 at a popular sports arena in Kaduna metropolis.

The State Acting Secretary of APC, Yahaya Baba Pate however said the bribery allegation was unfounded. “It is a total lie that the Ward officials collected N500, 000 because nobody can induce any leader at any level”, Pate said.

But Sani who said he is the Secretary of the forum of ward chairmen in the local government disclosed that the local government is not aware of the letter of suspension.

He further stated that Sani’s suspension letter was not initially signed by the ward 6 Chairman, the ward of the Senator, adding that one of the signatories of the letter is an impostor.

While addressing a press conference at the Secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Kaduna State council yesterday, he alleged that a meeting of the ward executives was facilitated by the Senior Special Adviser on Trade and Investment to the ?governor, Muktar Ahmed Monrovia where the party leaders were given the money to carry out the suspension.

According to him “the meeting was facilitated by the Senior Special Adviser on trade and investment Muktar Ahmed Monrovia at Murtala Square where he gave them N500,000 each and promised them a lot more to come.

“They signed the document they thought was an attendance only for some of them to discover that what they signed was a suspension letter.”

Speaking on the impasse between the Governor and the Senator, he said, “As a way of finding solution to the matter, we the forum of Chairmen of the local government invited Comrade Shehu Sani? and we had a meeting with him where we told him we were not happy with what was going on between him and the governor, stressing that what was happening was affecting our baby party and he gave us his side of the fracas.

“Thereafter, we invited the Senior Special Adviser on trade and investment to the governor and we had a meeting with him the same day and pleaded that he arranges a meeting between us and the executive governor and told him all that transpired between us and the Senator who is ready for a round table to address the matter.

“He promised to facilitate a meeting between the forum and the Governor. On Monday, I called him on the said meeting, he told me he was at home and promised ?to call, he actually called but said the Governor was out of town.

“But to our chagrin, this same person who was supposed to facilitate a meeting between us and the governor, went ahead to organize a meeting between the Exco of ward 6 Tudun Wada at Murtala Square where he gave them five hundred thousand naira and a lot of promises that they should sign a paper for him.

“Most of them that signed the paper said they did not know what they signed and at the end of the day, we met some of these excos who cannot even speak English who said they thought what they signed was an attendance paper.

“So, we are calling on all our party members irrespective of whoever side you are, the Governor and the Senator owed Kaduna people a lot, because we went out to campaign and rallied support for them, so what Kaduna people expect from them is dividends of democracy and development”.