Saraki not responsible for PDP crisis, Zakari tells Kogi ex-lawmaker

Former spokesman of the House of Representatives, Hon. Mohammed Zakari has described as mischievous, irresponsible and very unfortunate, a statement credited to his former colleague from Yagba Federal Constituency, Sunday Karimi indicting former Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, in the current crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kogi State.

Karimi had claimed that Saraki should be blamed for the automatic tickets given to some federal legislators of the party in the state during the last general elections. He added that the development led to the crisis rocking the party.

But Zakari who represented Baruten-Kaiama Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives between 2011 and 2019, said the decision to give automatic tickets to the legislators was made by the party at the national level.

According to a statement he personally signed, Zakari, noted that Karimi was just standing truth in the head and acting as a sore loser by holding Saraki responsible for a decision taken by the national leadership of the party that all National Assembly members who defected to the PDP should be given automatic tickets.

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“It was an open secret that both in PDP and APC, after the gale of defections in the National Assembly before the last general elections, members who defected into the respective parties and those who refused to defect were given automatic tickets. And except in a few, isolated cases, that directive of the national leadership was respected across board.

“How then can Karimi who lost in his aspiration to leave the House of Representatives to go and slug it out with Sen. Dino Melaye for the senatorial ticket blame Saraki over his inability to get the ticket? Was it Saraki that conducted the screening and the primaries in Kogi State?

“Karimi is a sore loser. He was being immature and not behaving like a good sportsman. Why did he not challenge the National leadership of the party when it took that decision? And how could Kogi’s case be different when the same directive affected all the party chapters across the country,” Zakari noted.

He urged Karimi to desist from dragging the name of Saraki into his personal grouse and loss.

He also noted that Saraki is not just a national leader of the party but also the leader of the party in the North-Central zone.

“We will not tolerate a situation where a Karimi who, because, he could not get the party’s senatorial ticket in the last election would now be sabotaging genuine efforts of the party to win the next governorship polls in the state by making statements aimed at derailing genuine efforts to unite all members behind the party as the Governorship election approaches,” he noted.