Marafa revives faction as Zamfara APC crisis deepens

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Zamfara State, Senator Kabiru Marafa, has announced the revival of his faction as the crisis rocking the state chapter of the party resurfaces.

It would be recalled that, as a result of the crisis between Marafa and former Governor Abdulaziz Yari, which led to the fractionalisation of the party in 2018, all electoral positions won by the party in the 2019 general elections, including the governorship, were forfeited to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after the Supreme Court affirmed the suit filed by Marafa to challenge the primary election that produced the party’s candidates.

While the current Minister of Defence for State, Bello Matawalle, who emerged governor of the state after the apex court ruling, later defected to the APC, his defeat at the 2023 governorship election had been traced to the unresolved internal crisis within his party.

Addressing journalists in Kaduna during the breakout session of a meeting with hundreds of his followers who came from Zamfara for the Sunday night meeting, Senator Marafa said there had been two factions in the APC running simultaneously since the crisis broke out during the Yari administration, and this continued during Matawalle’s tenure.

According to him, the crisis rocking the party in the last six years was a result of interests from political heavyweights in the state.

The senator, who represented Zamfara Central in the 7th and 8th National Assembly, announced the reincarnation of his faction in protest to his exclusion as well as his followers from the recent meeting of the party in the state.

He admitted that the crisis led to the ruling party losing major elections in the state, except for the presidency, where he served as the coordinator of the Tinubu/Shettima campaign organisation.

Exonerating himself from the crisis in the state, he dispelled the belief that it was his faction that took the APC to court in 2019, explaining that the party in Zamfara conducted an illegal primary and went to court seeking the legality of the process.

“We are going to reincarnate our faction, which we dissolved in favour of Yari because it was the faction recognised by the APC at that time. Since we agreed to come together, we thought there was no need to deceive ourselves by belonging to factions. That’s what Matawalle did as the leader of the party since he was governor.

“From today, I have directed my followers to reincarnate our faction from polling units to state level because that’s what the leaders of the APC want. There is always an implication in whatever you do. Even if you decide to follow someone, there is an implication. We have been on that path in the past, and we know the road,” he said.