The crisis bedeviling the fortunes of the All Progressives Congress ( APC ) in Zamfara State , seem to be defiling solution as the warring factions are still poles apart even with the intervention of the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led National Caretaker Committee.
The crisis which had the former governor of the state, Abdulaziz Yari, and Senator Kabiru Marafa as leaders of the two factions, swept the party out of power in Zamfara state last year.
Even while in the cold, the two factional leaders of the party in the state, are still sticking to their guns and preparing for the worse in 2023.
This is as the Kabiru Marafa-led faction accused the Bunu led National Caretaker Committee of siding the Yari faction and warning that such move , would not yield any fruitful result for the party in the state.
Fielding questions from journalists in Abuja Friday, Senator Marafa said the Buni committee had already got it wrong in Zamfara state by speaking only to the Yari-led faction.
This according to him, might be part of the agenda of former and serving governors within the party to hijack it for Presidential ambition of the serving ones among them “which will not only backfired but failed.
“On whether Gov Mai Mala should go to sleep or double his effort is left to him. All I know is the committee is already failing, and they are failing because they are listening to the likes of Yari who always speak from the two sides of their mouth.
“There are a few good people in the committee that means well to the party and I advise them to wake up and do what they are asked to do and leave the politics of 2023. Nobody can bring the position of national chairman to the North now.
“The moves by some crooks within the Governors forum to hijack the party and install a serving Governor and an expired one to succeed President Buhari will crash the way Yari’s selfish agenda crashed totally,” he said.
He debunked the claim allegedly made by Yari that he made him a Senator in 2011 and got him re-elected in 2015 , saying, “I was among those who made him governor and not him , making me Senator.”
“I listened to Yari’s press briefing after his visit to the APC secretariat, he cowardly tried to say something like, he sent some people to the National Assembly, but the moment they were there, they forgot how they got in there.
“Let me put the record straight; in 2011 when Yari was desperate to become Governor, he came to my house in my village, the night PDP fraudulently denied me ticket in favour of the then incumbent Senator.
“Yari begged me to accept their ticket (ANPP) which at that time meant nothing looking at the fact that the federal, state and local government were all under the firm control of the PDP. He didn’t bring the ticket to my house because he loved me, ANPP offered me ticket because they were desperate to win the election. He pleaded with me to contest because he knew I have people behind me, they loved me and the people of Zamfara central demonstrated their love for me by giving me 100,000 votes over and above the incumbent senator. The incumbent Senator got 93,000 votes and I got 203,000 votes.
“Senator Yarima who came from the same zone with Yari won marginally with less than 7,000 votes, PDP’s Senator Sahabi Ya’u won the other zone with a margin of about 10,000 votes. So, i brought the winning votes!
“The records are there, and the situation is still the same. It’s after he spent eight years as governor that he thought he was strong enough to uproot me but God taught him the lesson of his life. Or do you think it is easy for a poor senator to challenge a sitting governor, Chairman Governors’ forum with unlimited resources from his state, Paris Club and all other clubs you can think of?
“He could not for instance as a sitting governor match my rally, he in fact could not organise one, my rally was played live on NTA, go find and find out, i defeated him hands-down.
“I am used to taking risk, I took risk with him (Yari) in 2011, I can still take risk today, I challenge him (Yari) to come out and take risk. What is he doing in APC? He is only afraid of EFCC because of the atrocities he committed as a governor and Chairman of NGF, let me and him pick two different political parties other than the ruling party and contest election and see who will win.
“He should stop this hypocrisy and face reality, he is the one that is desperately looking for reconciliation because he caused the problem not me, he used state resources and incumbency power to get undue advantage, he is now down and out so he should stop deceiving himself.”
