Kaduna, Adamawa, others in season of political schisms, defections, denials‏

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The
political
terrain is
convulsing, as politicians resort to
alignments and re-alignments, defections
and de-defections all in an attempt to
position for the 2015 general elections.
Recent notion was that the exodus of
“dissatisfied” politicians was a one-way
traffic — from the ruling Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) to the grand
opposition All Progressives Congress
(APC).  However, there had been
migrations, too, to the PDP, which is still
smarting from the defection of five
governors to the APC. Below are the
current forward and backward departures
in the polity in the states, particularly in
Kaduna State where there is a war of
words between the PDP and APC.
1,200 PDP chieftains move to APC
PDP refutes defection story
VICE President Namadi Sambo suffered a
major political setback on Monday
when about 1,200 chieftains of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in his
constituency in Kaduna North local
government area defected to the All
Progressives Congress (APC).
  It was barely a week after a former
chairman of the PDP in the state, Alhaji
Yaro Makama, former commissioners and
70 other party leaders also decamped to
the APC.
  Makama, who led the defectors,
cited injustice in the PDP as one of the
reasons for leaving to join the opposition
APC.
  The defectors were received by the APC’s
Interim Chairman in the state, Dr. Hakeem
Baba-Ahmed, at the party’s secretariat on
Ali Akilu Road, Kaduna.
  Meanwhile, officials of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna North
local government area have denied claims
by the APC that there was mass defection
of PDP members to the opposition in the
state.
  The party said that the allegation was
meant to embarrass the Vice President,
Alhaji Namadi Sambo, as a member of the
constituency.
  Fielding questions from journalists after
the ceremony, Baba-Ahmed, a former
national secretary of the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), said
the decampees had asked “for forgiveness
for stealing the party’s (APC) mandate
over the years during elections.”
  “We have forgiven them and hope that
together, we shall work to defeat PDP in
the state come 2015,” he said.
  The APC leader noted that, “if an
unprecedented number of party chieftains
could decamp from the Vice President’s
local government council, it shows that
the PDP was finished in the state.”
Baba-Ahmed, who described the turn of
events in the Kaduna State as a political
revolution, assured the defectors of equal
opportunity in the APC.
“As from today, the original APC
members and the decamped PDP
members are one and the same,” he said.
  He disclosed that the APC “has been
under pressure since the party received
the ex-PDP chairman in the state, ex-
commissioners and other chieftains of the
party into its (APC) fold.”
According to him, it was possible that
the 1,200 members of the PDP decided to
join the APC when the Vice President was
holding a meeting of stakeholders in order
to avert further defections in the state.
  He stressed: “This is the entire PDP
leadership of the Kaduna North local in
Kaduna State that have decided to
decamp from the PDP to join the APC.
“Let me remind you that Kaduna North
local government is the constituency of
the Vice President Namadi Sambo.
“Everybody that you see here is the root
and the branch of PDP in Kaduna North
local government, but they have decided
to dump the party for APC.
“So, this is the significance. If this can
happen in only one local government, it
shows to you what is happening in the
rest of the local governments. PDP is
finished in Kaduna State.
“We have been placed under
tremendous pressure the very day we
received 75 leaders of the PDP, and we
have opened our doors to receive more
and more PDP people.”
Baba-Ahmed continued: “It is possible
that the PDP people from the Vice
President’s local government decided to
declare support for the APC while he is in
Kaduna. We are very happy to receive
them.
“The PDP people that have decamped to
join us today are 1,200 people just from
the Vice President’s local government.”
One of the PDP decampees, Alhaji Musa
Baba Abdul, who spoke with journalists,
said that, “we are happy to be part of the
APC family today and we shall work hard
to make sure that APC is victorious in
2015 in the state, Isha Allah.”
However, at a press conference at the
secretariat of the Nigeria Union of
Journalists (NUJ) in Kaduna, the PDP
chairman of Kaduna North, Alhaji
Abdullahi Babawo, said that no member of
the executive council of the party had
declared for the APC.
“We are surprised where they (APC) got
the 1,200 members of our party that they
said defected to APC,” he said.
  Babawo challenged officials of the APC to
produce the party membership cards of
those PDP decampees whom, they
claimed, had joined the opposition party
in Kaduna State.
  According to him: “Our attention has
been drawn to publications by APC that
some of our members have decamped to
their party from PDP and to portray the
APC as having gained an upper hand
within the Kaduna North Local
Government Area.
“Their (APC’s) report that some people
decamped from the PDP was to cast
political aspersion against the Vice
President, Alhaji Namadi Sambo, and to
score cheap political point against him.
“I have met with all my ward chairmen
and it was a malicious fabrication
deliberately executed to coincide with the
visit of the Vice President to the state and
diminish whatever he came to do.
“I assure the public that APC has no
strong footing within the local
government and we are going to show
that we are the party to beat.”
Nyako is impersonating, say Gundiri,
Marwa.
From Emmanuel Ande, Yola
THE crisis that has engulfed the Adamawa
State chapter of the All Progressives
Congress (APC) since the entrance of
Governor Murtala Nyako into the party has
continued unabated.
  Former governorship candidate of the
defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN),
Mr. Markus Gundiri and Gen. Mohammed
Buba Marwa (Rtd) of the dead Congress
for Progressive Change (CPC) during the
2012 polls have declared that Governor
Nyako was impersonating as a member of
the APC.
  Gundiri, an engineer, who addressed
thousands of APC members inYola in the
week during a stakeholders’ meeting, said
that Nyako was not admitted into the
party, as “he is impersonating the
leadership position he is claiming to be in
the party.”
Gundiri, who was represented at the
occasion by his deputy, Alhaji Abdulrazaq
Namdas, said the APC was too young to
acquire what he described as
“unmanageable political liabilities like
Nyako” in the party at a time it was
supposed to shop for people of proven
integrity and leadership quality.
  His words: “If the governor says that he
has followership, why has his deputy
refused to follow him (into the APC)?
“Where are the State and National
Assembly members that decamped with
him like the situation in Kwara, Kano and
Sokoto States where the lawmakers
decamped with their governors?
“Nobody outside Adamawa State know
Nyako more than us in the state; the
governor cannot win his council; so, we
don’t need him.”
Gundiri reminded members of the APC in
the state that the founding fathers of the
party would not fold their hands and
watch any individual or group destroy the
party for their selfish interest.
“Nyako said it in the media that he
would kill PDP before he would leave;
anybody that kills his father or mother
and is boasting can do the worse thing to
you that is not his blood relations,” he
said.
“So, we don’t want people that kill
parties; we want APC to be alive.”
In his remarks, Marwa, who was
represented by Mr. Baba Suleiman, an
engineer, vowed that he could not be in a
party that Nyako was the leader.
  He alleged that the governor has no
respect for rule of law, transparency,
accountability and internal democracy.
  He noted that the APC was built on
norms and values of democracy, which,
he said, were against the operational rules
of Nyako in politics.
  The former military administrator of
Lagos State, who insisted that the APC
could not compromise its norms for an
individual, said that the party could do
better without the governor.
“If an old man is not ashamed to ride a
bicycle in the market, the bicycle will not
be ashamed to throw him down in the
market,” he said.
  Marwa guaranteed members of the party
that the local governments tour embarked
upon by leaders of the APC in the state, to
mobilise support for the party, would
continue after the Christmas holidays.
Sambo meets with party leaders from
Sokoto, Zamfara, Kano
From Saxone Akhaine
(Northern Bureau Chief)
APPARENTLY wary of the political struggle
by the opposition All Progressives
Congress (APC) to take over the Northwest
zone in the 2015 general elections, Vice
President Namadi Sambo met during the
week with stakeholders of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) in Kano, Sokoto
and Zamfara States.
  Sambo, who reviewed the challenges
andprospects of the PDP in the
geopolitical region, advised the party
leaders to halt further defections from the
PDP to the APC.
  Besides, he urged them to improve on
political strategies to win Kano, Sokoto
and Zamfara States, which controlled by
the APC.
  The Vice President also received a
delegation of PDP chieftains from Sokoto
State, led by the Deputy Governor, Alhaji
Mukhtar Shagari, on a solidarity visit to
him in Kaduna.
  The party leaders pledged that no
member of the PDP would defect to the
opposition party in Sokoto State.
 The meeting convened by the Vice
President, which started at noon on
Tuesday at the State House, Kawo,
Kaduna, was attended by former Speaker
of the House of Representatives, Alhaji
Ghali Na’Abba; son of former Head of
State, Mohammed Abacha; and other
prominent PDP chieftains in Kano, Sokoto
and Zamfara.
  There was a representative of the
National Publicity Secretary of the PDP,
Mr. Olisa Metuh.
  On behalf of all the delegations,
Ambassador Aminu Wali said the defection
of Kano State Governor, Dr. Rabiu
Kwankwaso, had brought fresh air to the
PDP.
  Wali said that former Kano Governor,
Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, an APC stalwart,
had been contacted to join the PDP, along
with his supporters.
  He said the delegation felicitated with
Vice President Namadi Sambo on the
occasion of New Year and briefed him on
the political situation in Kano.
“The stakeholders expressed their
willingness to further develop more
strategies and tactics to forge a common
front so as to ensure peaceful political
activities and compliance to due process,”
he said.
    In the intervening time, the delegation
of the PDP chieftains from Sokoto met
with the Vice President and briefed him on
the political situation in the state, assuring
him that that party was in firm control of
the state.
  Addressing journalists after the meeting,
the Deputy Governor of Sokoto State,
Alhaji Shagari, said that, “the Vice
President has commended the party
stakeholders for consolidating the party
and the various effort in wooing more
members and ensuring that the party
machinery from ward to the state level is
strengthened, and the PDP continues to
wax stronger in Sokoto State.”
Shagari said that stakeholders from the
state had also expressed their willingness
to further develop more strategies and
antics to forge a common front in order to
ensure peaceful political activities and
compliance to due process.