PERSONAL OPINION
By Anas Sani Anka
It is not wrong to use the impression of ‘all is not well’ with Zamfara APC considering the titanic battle between the APC camp of Governor Yari and that of Bello Matawalle led by Senator Sani Yarima as both parties stood their grounds and insist on having the total control of the party.
The argument is whether by law of the party the interim caretaker committee chairman Mai Mala Buni has the power to orally announced the dissolution of the party interim caretaker committee for the state without the resolution of the National Working Committee and National Executive Committee.
The Yari faction is vehemently opposing that decision on the ground that such a critical decision has to be taken by the National Executive Committee (NEC) members and ratified by the National Working Committee (NWC) arguing that, anything short of that would result to an exercise in futility.
Sen. Kabiru Garba Marafa has said it loudly and clear that he is going to challenge the decision of dissolving the state party executives to court and threatened not to recognize any interim committee of the state to be reconstituted by Mai Mala Buni.
Former Governor Yari has again informed the media in an obvious voice that “as per their faction is concern, they would continue to conduct the party activities with the initial interim caretaker committees led by Lawal M. Liman pending when a new congress was conducted.
According to some unverified sources, there are about five court cases instituted against Governor Bello Matawalle, and APC National headquarters led by Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State.
One of the suits is the one filed at the federal high court by ten local government interim caretaker committees seeking for enforcement of the Article 14.1 (111), (V) and (V111) of the APC constitution and also a declaration that the pronouncement by Mai Mala Buni dissolving the state caretaker committees as null and void.
As for Bello Matawalle camp, since 29th June 2021 when Mai Mala announced the dissolution of the M. Liman led interim committee, the Governor and his team led by Sen. Yarima have been working to restructure the party machinery in the state.
They have for instance initiated the formation of the three-man interim caretaker committee for the state led by Sen. Hassan Nasiha, Mukhtar Ahmad Anka and Prof. Abdullahi Shinkafi and they were since inaugurated by the APC National Headquarters in Abuja.
As alarming as the situation, some hired political thugs late last week invaded the party state secretariat of the Yari faction of the APC and vandalize many of its valuable structures, a step vehemently condemned by the Yari faction during a press conference by its factional chairman Lwal M. Liman.
Before that incident, one of the APC Chieftain under Governor Bello Matawalle faction Sani Abdullahi Wamban Shinkafi has been making a persistent call for the IGP and other security agencies to seal up the M. Liman factional secretariat of APC to prevent the outbreak of law and order.
REVIEWING THE APC CRISES AND PREDICTING THE POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES
Many political observers believed the new dimension of the crisis has turned to a show of force between former Governor Yari and his political god-father Yariman Bakura because from the trend Governor Matawalle is not even an issue to the new crises.
In my opinion, Matawalle should have not even defected to the APC in the first instance, despite the logic in some of his reasons for living PDP. My reason is simple, instead of Yari to be wagging war against the Governor he has turned his attention to Yarima and for close to a week now the titanic battle has been limited to the two major political actors. Where Matawalle does come in to this? I really don’t know.
It appears as if Matawalle is dragged in to a battle he has no stake to be involved in and instead of Matawalle to be working closely with those he met in the party to consolidate and set the agenda for the development of the state, he has been pushed to a stand upper position for the two big elephants to finish their race and for one of them to decide his sense of direction and for me, this is too bad for a politician in the status of a Governor.
Now the general impression people have is that Governor Matawalle has lost control of the flight and another captain is in charge how the journey ends nobody can determine that for now.
But I think one thing Nigerian politicians are lacking is lack of proper application of the knowledge of history and for me, I have sat down to think memory lane about the journey of former Governor Mamuda Shinkafi especially after his defection to the PDP then and examines the scenarios and incidences behind the political crash I’m 2011 and I also believed there is too much to fear for Governor Bello Matawalle if he did not set up very well. This is an honest opinion from the button of my heart.
One advice I will have to give to Matawalle is to look for those actors who played the 2011 game and get them to replay the tape of scenarios and incidences that cut-off with the former Governor Mamuda for him so that he would understand the real danger ahead. There are many of them who are still closed to him, and I am sure they can refresh his memory about the 2011 experience.
In politics, ‘’you don’t surrender captain ship for loyalty’’ because politics is a game of number and popularity. It is good you sustain your loyalty no doubt about it, especially if you are morally conscious, but you also don’t play with the factor of ‘’popularity’’ and ‘’majority’’ that is why a good politician does not normally care about his strengths, but he goes in to political networking and forming alliances.
For me, I still argue that, if I were Abdulazeez Yari with what happened in 2019 I will pack my belongings and leaves Zamfara politics for others to try their luck because spending huge amount of money to be paying people salary, buying rams, cattle, and trucks of food stuffs and fertilizer has no meaning. It’s a fact, Yari would never contest for the seat of the Governor of Zamfara again and the highest thing he is to contest is the post of the senator in 2023 then why all the suffering?
For me, it is only good he allows those with the aspirations to contest for the seat of a Governor to come and test their popularity and see if they can secure the good will of the people.
As for Yarima I think the two episodes of Mahmuda Shinkafi and that of Yari should be enough for him to understand that ‘’time of significant essence’’. The two of them he sponsored have allegedly betrayed him,, so he does not need to be told that it is time for him to quit Zamfara politics.
As for Governor Matawalle he need to learn from the political ideology of his predecessor Yari ‘’that if you opted to pilot a Boeing plane you really need to have what it takes to be a captain and take full control, anything short of that it would amount to an un-expected crash’’.GOD-FORBID
Zamfara people are really at the receiving end in all this wahala.
Allah ya chechi jahar Zamfara
