Zamfara APC crisis: Marafa faction chides Matawalle group for overlooking realities

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi and

The chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC) faction led by Senator Kabiru Garba Marafa in Zamfara State, Alhaji Surajo Maikatako, has revealed that the faction’s grouse with Governor Bello Matawalle’s group is because of its refusal to accept the political realities in the State.

Speaking in Gusau, the State capital on Sunday, Maikatako told Governor Matawalle that some people brought APC to Zamfara State and nurtured it to the present level.

“Governor Matawalle defected to APC because the party has gained enormous relevance in the state and he could not complete his eight years with PDP and that was the reason why he decamped to APC,” he said.

“Yet the Governor does not want to work in collaboration with the people he met in the party because he was perfectly relying on the power of incumbency.”

The factional chairman noted that his stubbornness is the reason the party has continued to have factions in the state, adding that the national headquarters of the party does not want to settle the grievances due to what they were getting from the embattled Governor.

“Even Senator Ahmed Sani Yarima, who claims to be the doyen of Zamfara politics, could not wade into the crisis and settle it but was looking for a political favour from Governor Bello Mohammed Matawalle’s administration,” he said.

When asked if the national headquarters of the party recognizes his faction’s Congresses, he replied by asking if the Supreme Court recognized the 2019 APC parallel primary election conducted by Yari’s faction in the state.

“If the court had recognized the parallel primary election in the state, Yari’s faction would have formed government in Zamfara state in 2019, but the faction did not form any government because the primary election was illegal,” he said.

Maikatako noted that the same illegal congress being conducted by Matawalle would also be declared illegal, saying that they were only wasting their time and the state resources in the name of politics, pointing out that politics has denied the people of the state some developmental projects.

The chairman noted that Yarima has gotten his political dynasty destroyed since he began his romance with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the days of former President Umaru Yar’Adua.