Story from Kenneth AFOR, Lagos

There are signs that crisis may erupt in the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s Northern zone aftermath the decamping of Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the APC and declared leader of the party in the state.

Matawalle was declared leader of the party in his state by his counterpart, Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State and chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) caretaker committee on Tuesday.

READ ALSO: Matawalle joins APC, crowned party leader in Zamfara

Governor Buni had also while receiving Matawalle into the ruling party in Gusau on Tuesday announced the dissolution of the APC executives in Zamfara state.

However, while featuring on BBC Hausa Service on Thursday, the former governor of the state, Abdulaziz Yari and Senator Kabiru Garba Marafa, rejected Buni’s declaration saying Matawalle is not the leader of the party in Zamfara.

The two leaders of the party in the state who spoke after a meeting with the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, said they will not surrender to the Matawalle’s leadership.

“It’s one thing that we are challenging which is the declaration by Governor Mai Mala. His declaration was not part of what we discussed with six governors before he (Matawalle) defected.

“What we all agreed during our meeting with the six governors was that Matawalle should be received into our fold and afterwards we should discuss how to integrate both his people and ours. But during the defection, we were told that the party executives should be dissolved. You just don’t dissolve executives of a party because nobody has the power to do so,” Yari said.

On his part, Marafa said the declaration of Matawalle as the leader of the party in the state is equal to deception, insisting that they will not accept it.

“We said for proper integration, there should be a meeting for proper consultations but all of a sudden, announcement was made that the party executives had been dissolved and someone was named as leader of our party. This is incorrect,” he said.

Until February this year, Yari and Marafa were of different camps in the Zamfara State APC. But Buni had to intervene in the feud between the two politicians that allegedly caused APC Zamfara State in the 2019 elections.

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