A faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Zamfara State led by Senator Kabiru Marafa has demanded the dissolution of the State Executive of the party and inauguration of a caretaker committee to run its affairs in the North-West state.
The former publicity secretary of the party, Mohammed Bello, made the call on Thursday in Abuja while addressing newsmen.
The faction also called on the interim national leadership led by Yobe state governor, Mai Mala Buni, to reprimand chieftains of the party whose actions contributed to APC loss of Zamfara state.
Tribune Online checks revealed that the APC candidate in last general elections, Mukhtar Idris, was stripped of his mandate as the Supreme Court last May ruled that the APC did not conduct valid primaries in the build-up to the 2019 general elections in Zamfara.
The Supreme Court validated the judgement of the Court of Appeal, Sokoto Division, which ruled that no valid primaries were conducted by the APC in Zamfara State.
The court in a unanimous judgement by a five-member panel, on Friday, decided that a party that had no valid candidate cannot be said to have emerged winner of the recently conducted general elections.
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The Senator Marafa faction premised their call on dissolution on a pronouncement of the High Court in Gusau which on August 7, declared illegal the State chapter put in place by the former governor, Abdul Aziz Yari.
He said: “So we are here now to call on the caretaker committee of this great party under the leadership of His Excellency Mai Mala Buni to look inward and use his wisdom as a former secretary of this party and now an executive member of the NEC to dig deep and get to the root cause, to know who is at fault on this issue. And not only that, in fact, we are calling on them to make sure they punish whoever caused all these loses in Zamfara State.”
“Already the damage has been done. It is the court judgement that we brought to national secretariat just for them to know that there is no APC leadership in Zamfara state and measures have to be taken to safe the party.”
“Everybody knows that Senator Marafa’s faction is a law-abiding faction. Just because we are law-abiding members we choose to go for legal means. We always take caution in everything we are doing. That’s why we are the first to write a memorandum to the peace and reconciliation committee led by Bisi Akande, that is to tell you that we are peace-loving and ready for reconciliation but detest injustice and if this kind thing repeats itself it can lead to a national crisis in the APC.”
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