The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Senator Kabiru Garba Marafa (APC-Zamfara Central), has said he would remain in the All Progressives Congress to support President Muhammadu Buhari and coordinate his 2019 re-election bid.
Maraca has been fighting to enlist his name on the list of candidates for the governorship election in Zamfara State.
However, the infighting within the APC has led to the Independent National Electoral Commission declaring the party unfit to put forward any candidate for next year’s elections.
The INEC deadline for the substitution of governorship candidates ends on December 1, 2019.
INEC had banned the APC from submitting candidates for governorship, National and State Assembly elections following the party’s inability to conduct primaries or reach consensus in Zamfara State following allegations that Governor Abdulaziz Yari was trying to impose his own candidates.
However, Marafa, a governorship aspirant in Zamfara State, said as a founding member of the APC and a close confidant of President Buhari, he will remain in the party even when his ambition is threatened.
He said: “I will remain in the APC to support and lead President Buhari’s 2019 re-election campaign in Zamfara state and to ensure that Governor Yari fails woefully in his attempts to perpetrate injustice and impose his moles as candidates of the party in the state.
“The facts are clear that, Gov. Yari has failed woefully and has lost the popular support of the people, he can’t win any election in Zamfara today, he therefore choose to hide under the Federal might to perpetrate criminality using his 8,500 recruited ‘vigilante’ to rig the elections in his favour and his co-travellers.
“We say No to that. I am going to remain in the APC to ensure that he and his cohorts are effectively retired.
“We have come this far together with all the people of Zamfara state, they have expressed there desire for change, they have given us their maximum support, and they have rejected Yari and all his chosen candidates. They have sacrificed their lives and health, some were killed while many others were injured during the botched and make-believe primaries in the state, all courtesy of Gov Yari.
“Having failed in his cruel attempt to impose his candidates through dubious means, he now wants to use the instrumentality of the Courts to legalise his illegalities. We will block him and let him know that Courts aren’t places for dumping of charades.
“Yari organised and conducted illegal, make believe primaries in absolute violation of a subsisting Court Order and the directive of our party’s National Working Committee (NWC). He thereafter ran to Court to give his illegalities a legal backing, forgetting that our courts are not rubber stamp. Courts are homes of equity and if you are going to the courts, you must go with clean hands.”
Marafa thanked the people of the state for their maximum support and cooperation to him, saying his decision to remain in the APC, despite all pressures, was in appreciation of their tremendous support and in their best interest.
He challenged Yari to go to another party with all his anointed candidates and contest if he believes he is popular.
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