Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin has been expelled from the APC.

That’s the news in summary but the lawmaker has immediately responded by describing the reports as false. “My attention has been drawn to a false claim attributed to some mischievous impersonators that I’ve been expelled from my party, the APC. This report, I’ve gathered, came from a known fraudster who is neither chair of my party at the LG level nor a part of the state party EXCO“, he said in a series of tweets.

Let’s just point out that this “known fraudster” Hon Jibrin refers to is (we suppose) the Chairman of the party in Bebeji local government, Sani Kanti Garka who called a press conference to accuse the lawmaker of causing divisions in the party. Garka alleged that Jibrin formed “a parallel APC leadership in Bebeji and 14 wards, sabotaging Ganduje-led government and disloyalty to APC national leadership by sabotaging Buhari-led administration”. Grave accusation, you say?

Can we say it’s interesting that in his response, Hon Jibrin failed to address the allegation levelled against him? Has he made any attempt to divide the party? Is he sabotaging the Ganduje-led administration? The questions have not been answered but Hon Jibrin has made the issue about “character assassination”, a phrase he has come to use more frequently in the last one year since the budget padding scandal became a thing.

It’s easy for us to embrace Jibrin’s side of the story considering he received an invitation from the EFCC for clarifications into his 2016 petition on the budget padding allegations. We can embrace the theory that someone is desperately working to ruin Jibrin’s chances of telling his story hence sweeping the investigation under the carpet.

But! There’s also the fact that Jibrin denied he had been suspended a year ago. At the time, he was quick to call his suspension “a non-issue, complete nonsense and it is not going to stand anywhere in the world”. How long has the suspension stood now?

This expulsion issue is a developing one and we will be far from surprised if it turns out to be true because as it is now, Hon Jibrin’s rebuttal holds no water. We’ll give him time to come to terms with things.

Tolu

Your pop culture/entertainment go-to. Music head. Wallflower. I do not like to write. On a mission to decipher covfefe.