Bloodletting continues in Zamfara APC as former governor Yari and Senator Marafa are expelled by different factions

FORMER Zamfara State governor Abdulaziz Yari has been expelled from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the party goes through a blood-letting upheaval in response to its recent loss of all elective positions within the state.

In December, Inec told the APC that it will not be allowed to field candidates in Zamfara State having missed the submission of candidate deadline. Under Inec's timetable, political parties had until October 7 to conclude their primary elections and the last day for the submission of lists of sponsored candidates was October 18 for the presidential and National Assembly elections and November 2 for governorship and state houses of assembly polls.

However, the APC went to court and got the decision reversed and was thus able to field candidates for all elective positions in Zamfara State. However, after the elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won a further court judgement which ruled that the APC did not hold primaries and as such could not have selected candidates to stand for elections in Zamfara State.

This resulted in the PDP sweeping the floor across Zamfara State, with its candidates emerging as governor, members of the state house of assembly, senators and members of the Federal House of Representatives. This has created a lot of bad blood within the APC and as the inquest continues, one faction of the party has decided to expel Governor Yari, blaming him for the debacle.

Opponents had blamed Governor Yari for failing to allow primaries to hold as he did not allow opponents to obtain nomination forms despite paying for them. Today, the party announced the expulsion of Governor Yari along with Alhaji Lawali Shuaibu, the APC deputy national chairman for allegedly conniving with Governor Yari to sabotage the national working committee during the botched primaries.

According to a statement jointly signed by the chairman of the Zamfara State chapter of the party Alhaji Surajo Mai Katako and the publicity secretary Muhammad Bakyasuwa, said the expulsion was sequel to the electoral misfortune. They added that the former governor frustrated its efforts to conduct primaries, thus laying the foundation for the electoral misfortune that befell it in the state.

“After reviewing the outing of our party in the last general election and the outcome of the Supreme Court judgement, we hereby dismiss the former governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari and the deputy national chairman, Lawali Shuaibu from the APC. Following this development, we are urging them to immediately surrender all the belongings of the party in their possession including funds.

“Yari and his boys scuttled the efforts of our national headquarters to conduct primaries on the 3rd and 7th of October 2018. His nefarious activities led to the death of six persons and over 200 others were injured,” the statement read.

Apparently, another faction of the Zamfara State chapter of the party has expelled the Senator Kabiru Marafa, representing Zamfara Central Senatorial District for anti-party activities. Senator Marafa had been interested in standing in the gubernatorial primaries and had been a major critic of Governor Yari.

Expelled alongside Senator Marafa were immediate past deputy governor Ibrahim Wakkala and the member representing Kauran Namoda/Birnin Magaji Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Aminu Jaji. According to Alhaji Shehu Isah, the publicity secretary of the Zamfara State chapter of the APC, the decision to expel the three politicians was reached at a meeting of the state executive committee in Gusau, the state capital, on Sunday.