Shelve your visit to Zamfara, Marafa tells Buhari

By Olugbenga Salami

President Muhammadu Buhari has been asked to distance himself from the crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress, APC in Zamfara State by shelving the presidential campaign rally of the party scheduled to hold in Gusau, the state capital on Sunday.

A governorship aspirant of the party in the state, Senator Kabiru Marafa, who gave the advice at a press conference yesterday in Abuja, said President Buhari would win overwhelmingly in the state without any rally during the forthcoming presidential election.

Marafa, who represents Zamfara Central on the platform of APC in the National Assembly, therefore called on the president not to dignify the state governor, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari who he alleged was the architect of the party crisis in the state with such rally.

He said: “I will do everything possible to convince Mr. President not to go for the presidential rally slated for Gusau in Zamfara State on Sunday and if I failed in achieving that, it means my faction of the APC in the state will hold a separate rally for the President.

“The Zamfara people are overwhelmingly in support of President Buhari, but majority of them who are with my faction of the party will not attend a rally where the governor would be part of being the architect of the crisis rocking the party in the state as a result of illegal primary elections he conducted”.

He commended the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC for standing by its earlier position on the rejection of Zamfara APC candidates.

The commission in a statement on Wednesday by its National Commissioner in-charge of Information and Voter Education, Barrister Festus Okoye said, “the commission has decided to maintain its original position that the party in question did not conduct primaries, therefore, in line with Section 87 of the Electoral Act of 2010 (as amended), not eligible to field candidates”.

The INEC decision, according to Marafa, shows that the commission was not doing the bidding of any of the parties involved in our intra-party squabble.

He said: “From the beginning, the commission took a weighty but truthful position on the Zamfara APC primaries logjam, despite the fact that our party is the ruling political party.

“The development has shown that the commission will conduct credible, fair and transparent polls. We are urging the commission to always stand by the truth, no matter who is involved”.

He however added that APC could still field candidates in Zamfara State, if thier prayers before the Appeal Court in Sokoto are granted.

“We are very optimistic that a fresh window to conduct primaries opposed by Yari, will by God grace be granted by the Appeal Court”, he said.