The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has removed Chief Gabriel Aduku as its national chairman.
Adiku was replaced with Mamman Mike Osuman.
His removal was allegedly influenced by the outgoing governor of Kogi state, Yahaya Bello.
Aduku, a former minister of health and Chairman of Kogi East Elders Council (KEEC), are said to be at loggerheads with the Bello over irreconcilable political differences.
The ACF, in a communique issued at the end a joint meeting of it
Board of Trustees (BOT) and the National Executive Council (NEC), announced Osuman as its new chairman.
The communique said the meeting endorsed the leadership for forum, which was approved and inaugurated..
Those inaugurated, according to the communique signed by Muhammad- Baba, include Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu, Chairman BOT, Senator Fred Orti, Deputy Chairman, BOT, Amb. Ibrahim Mai Sule, Vice Chairman, BOT,
Chairman, NEC, Mamman Mike Osuman and Murtala Aliyu, Secretary general.
The communique said, Osuman, the new Chairman of the forum, in his acceptance speech, paid tribute to the founding members of the forum and pledged to “reinvigorate a new ACF that will be different in outlook and impact as it seeks to contribute to national discourse on issues relevant to the Nigeria project.”
Reacting to the removal of Aduku, Muhammad-Baba, said the former chairman of the forum was selected and not elected.
“My apologies, but no ACF Chairman was “elected” as such. A set of persons were selected and presented but were never inaugurated,” he said.
According to him, “Whosoever that wasn’t inaugurated today simply didn’t make it in the final list as presented by the leadership selection committee.
“The list was reviewed by ACF’s Leadership Selection Committee; it’s the final list that was now presented, approved by the joint Assembly and inaugurated.”
The Arewa Youth Vanguard (AYV) had on Monday alleged in a statement that there were plots by the outgoing Kogi governor to influence the removal of Aduku as ACF chairman.
The group had in the statement signed by Abdulsamad Babayo and
Kazayat Aminu, chairman and secretary of AYV respectively, alleged that Bello was nursing grudges with Aduku for visiting the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Christopher Musa, before the governorship election in the state.
During the visit, Aduku had appealed to the CDS to step up security in the state before the November 11 election.
The group had urged the ACF to “rise above the divisive manipulations of one man” to avoid destroying the forum which several distinguished personalities from across ethnic and religious groups in the North laboured for years to build.
“The ACF will be sounding its own death knell if it plays into the hands of unscrupulous politicians.
“Removing or attempting to remove Chief Gabriel Aduku because one governor’s untamed ego had been ruffled, will create a crack in the very fabric of ACF, a crack that it may never recover from”, AYV had warned.
ACF removes Aduku as Chairman, says he was “selected” not elected
