Why I dumped APC for PDP -Hon. Aliyu Tafida

By Musa Adamu

A former House of Representatives aspirant in Nasarawa/Toto Federal Constituency, Hon. Aliyu Ahmed Tafida, has given reasons behind his decision to dump All Progressives Party (APC) for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Hon. Tafida was a member of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), one of the legacy parties which formed the APC, in Nasarawa state.
He came second twice in the House of Representatives primary that produced late Hon. Musa Baba Onwana and that of the current member, Hon. Mohammed Ja’afaru Ibrahim, respectively.
Explaining why he dumped a party he helped formed at the state level, Hon. Tafida said he was unjustly treated in many occasions by the party and that no attempt was made to pacify him and his supporters.
He said his former party made it clear to him by the way it related to him that he did not matter and was not needed.
Disclosing the beginning of his displeasure with his former party, Hon. Tafida said when late Owana died, his group met with the party leadership to convince it of the need to apply “Kogi state doctrine” when Abubakar Audu, by declaring him as the party’s candidate in the bye-election since he came second, but that the leadership refused.
He said: “It was then they realized that I was too young to represent my constituency even when I had come second beating the so called experience aspirants.”
He further alleged that even when he agreed to participate in the primary, in order to stop him at all cost, his opponents decided to make use of mercenary to thwart their imminent defeat.
Hon. Tafida who said in the face of all the injustices meted out to him he defied his supporter’s entreaties to abandon the APC said the state government formed by his party never thought it necessary to pacify him and his supporters.
“Commissioners have been appointed twice by the state government without as much as looking in my direction. Many appointments were made without any recourse to me and my supporters. I believe it is unfair given my contributions in both cash and kind to the party and the state government.”
He said since the APC had showed that it did not need him, he was happy to crossover to PDP which “appreciates his worth” with a promise to accord him a level playing ground to achieve his ambition to provide “service to my people.”
Arguing that he was in politics to further his benevolence to his people, he added that it was wrong for the APC not have listened to his people who called on him to run for the office.
Also commenting, the Coordinator of Hon Tafida, Ibrahim Adamu Yunusa, described Hon Tafida as somebody who is gifted with two attributes of “likability and evenhandedness.”
He said his principal was also somebody who could easily adapt to any situation he was exposed to, adding he had made the right move and that his “people are with him.”