Why I dumped PDP, Shekarau reveals

FORMER Kano State governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, has said his decision to leave PDP was necessitated by the failure of the National leadership to resolve the lingering crisis which bedevilled the party following the illegal dissolution of the state executive committee.

He explained that the party’s decision to hand over the structure of the party to Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso pushed him out of the party.

Making the assertion on Saturday at his residence during a meeting with his loyalists and other stakeholders in the state, the former governor said the leadership of the party had violated the party constitution by dissolving the state executive committee without giving any cogent reason.

Shekarau added that as a result of what he described as the injustice by the PDP and after series of meetings with stakeholders, he decided to dump PDP without any formal conditions attached.

According to him,  when the National Working Committee  (NWC) constituted caretaker committees, all its members were loyalists of Senator Kwankwaso.

“The constitution stated clearly that when constituting committee for a state, the chairman and the secretary must come from outside the state. However, in this case, it was not done as all the members were from Kwankwaso’s camp.”

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“We have tried our best to ensure amicable resolution of the lingering crisis between our side and Kwankwaso side on the sharing of party positions at the state, local government and ward levels but it failed.”

He added that “we gave the party a deadline to bring back the elected members of the party to their positions, but it failed.

“We do not agree with the idea of giving automatic tickets  to the Kwankwasiyya members, who just joined the party.”

“Weighing the available three options, that is either to remain where we are, retire from politics or defect to another party.

“So finally I Ibrahim Shekarau, Sardaunan Kano and my followers resolved to defect to All Progressives Congress (APC),’’ he said.