10th February, 2011
Aspirations of Mohammed Abacha, the son of late former military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha to fly the gubernatorial flag of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, may have hit a brick wall following an interview granted to a foreign broadcast medium by Mr. Buba Galadima, the National Secretary of the party that the scion of the Abacha family is not the party’s candidate.
The party, through the National Chairman, Mr. Tony Momoh, recently expressed outrage over the alleged doctoring of the list of candidates it submitted to INEC last week.
Tony Momoh told journalists in Abuja last week that the commission disobeyed the provisions of the enabling law by substituting some names which it submitted to it for approval. Apparently referring to the announcement of Abacha, as the CPC gubernatorial candidate in Kano State, Mr. Momoh insisted that only the parties had the right to choose who contests on their platform and not the commission.
Mohammed Abacha who had earlier instituted a suit against the party over the matter at a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Thursday raised an alarm that the party wants to temper with his name which it earlier submitted to the Independent National ElectoralCommission  as the party’s governorship candidate for Kanostate.
Mr Abacha’s name appeared on the list of candidates displayed by the electoral umpire in Kano State, against earlier speculations that his closest rival, Lawal Ja’afaru Isah was the one whose name submitted to the electoral body. Mr Abacha wants the court to declare that INEC should not recognize any other governorship candidate from the CPC except him.
Abacha in his averment he said that “I have lately gathered from sources in the national secretariat of the party that the name of  Lawal Ja’afaru Isah has been confidently agreed to be submitted to
the electoral body in substitution for him as the gubernatorial candidate of the party in Kano State for no just cause.â€
The hearing of Mr. Abacha’s suit comes up on the 15th of February before Justice Gabriel Kolawole.
By Nnamdi Felix / Abuja
