The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Zamfara State has dismissed a circulating membership card allegedly issued to notorious bandit leader Bello Turji, describing it as a deliberate fabrication meant to damage the party’s reputation.
In a statement released on Monday, the party’s spokesperson, Yusuf Idris, said the card was forged and created by individuals seeking to mislead the public. He explained that the fake document falsely shows Turji as a registered member of the APC.
Idris noted that several obvious errors on the card exposed it as a forgery, including an incorrect date format and the use of a widely circulated photograph of the bandit leader that is familiar to both security agencies and the public.
He further stated that proper party registration requires a valid National Identification Number (NIN), which Turji does not possess, making it impossible for him to be legitimately enrolled. According to him, the registration process also involves completing detailed personal data forms before biometric capture, which contradicts the claims made by the fake card.
The spokesperson added that the membership number on the forged card was inconsistent with Zamfara’s official coding system. He explained that Zamfara membership cards begin with the code “36,” while the fake card carried the code “26,” which belongs to Niger State.
Idris also revealed that preliminary investigations traced the origin of the forged card to a social media post linked to an associate of a recently suspended party member, who had been barred from participating in the ongoing electronic registration exercise due to alleged irregularities.
He emphasized that the Zamfara APC leadership and the party’s registration coordination team completely disassociate themselves from the fake card and urged the public to ignore it. The party has reported the incident to security agencies and expressed confidence that those responsible will be identified and prosecuted.
The APC spokesperson concluded that the incident was an attempt to undermine the party’s ongoing registration process and called on residents to rely only on verified information from official sources.
