How Buhari made Yari attend Matawalle’s defection — Marafa

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Zamfara State, Senator Kabiru Garba Marafa, has explained how President Muhammadu Buhari asked former governor of Zamfara State, Abdul’aziz Yari, to attend the ceremony to receive his successor, Bello Matawalle, to the ruling party from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday.

Daily Trust has reported that Matawalle dumped PDP for APC on Tuesday. Yari, who was said to be against the defection of Matawalle, however, appeared with top shots of the party during the ceremony.

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Featuring Wednesday on one of the VOA Hausa Service programmes, Marafa said the president prevailed on Yari to attend the ceremony through Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.

Marafa, who reconciled with Yari in February following the interventions of the Governor of Yobe State/Chairman of the caretaker committee of the APC, Mai Mala Buni, said but for the intervention of the president, Yari was not billed to attend the event.

He said critical stakeholders had demanded the need to address grey areas before the governor’s defection.

Senator Marafa said, as a group, they rejected the invitation and told him their reasons but he ( El-Rufai) insisted that it was the president that asked that he wanted Yari to accompany other APC governors to Gusau, Zamfara State capital, but that nothing would be done without their group’s consent as Zamfara citizens.

“After the intervention, it was agreed that Yari should attend the gathering after which they would all return to Kaduna for further discussions with our people and those of Matawalle for proper integration,” he said.