Southern Kaduna groups differ over PDP performance

The Coalition of Southern Kaduna Nationalities (CSKN) has threatened to leave the PDP if the leadership fails to explain why most of its stalwarts in Kaduna State lost their constituencies.

Addressing a press conference in Kaduna, the leader of the group, Dr. Yusuf Gandu Magaji, said it was worrisome that the PDP governorship candidate, Alhaji Isa Ashiru and other leaders of the party, failed to deliver their constituencies at the just concluded National Assembly and presidential elections. The coalition threatened to switch support to another party if the PDP failed to explain what it called “woeful performance” of the party in the northern part of the state and gave the PDP 24 hours to respond.

“The pattern of the results of the just concluded presidential and National Assembly elections conducted on Feb. 23 leaves much to be desired. The results caused a shock to the Southern Kaduna nationalities and instigated a rethink in our longstanding marriage and commitment to the opposition party, PDP,” he said.

“The result shows that PDP won overwhelming in the southern senatorial zone. This stresses a fact that the zone remained faithful and voted for the party en masse. However, in a sharp contrast, the party performed woefully in zone 1 as their loyalty was shifted to APC,” he added.

Members of the group said they had already set up a team of young, vibrant and dynamic but promising citizens to begin the process of negotiation with other parties including the APC should the PDP fail in convincing them to stay in its fold.

However, the Southern Kaduna Autochthones CDAs Forum has distanced itself from CSKN’s threat to pull out from PDP.

Chairman of the forum, Dr. Zuwaqhu K. A. Bonat, in a statement, yesterday, said the CSKN group had forgotten that the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, got the highest number of votes from Kaduna State when compared with what he got in other places.

“Yusuf Gandu Magaji and his group do not even acknowledge this fact. Atiku Abubakar has begun legal processes to challenge INEC’s declaration of Buhari as winner. Why should the Southern Kaduna people abandon the person and party they voted for in their time of greatest need for support and encouragement?” he asked.

He insisted that the Southern Kaduna people had no quarrel with Senator Ahmed Makarfi, Arc. Namadi Sambo, Mukhtari Ramalan Yero and Isah Ashiru, saying Southern Kaduna got its chiefdoms under the PDP.