Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle and his predecessor, Abdulaziz Yari, are yet to reach a consensus on the sharing formula of party positions and government appointments, five weeks after the governor decamped.
Matawalle had on June 29 joined the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) despite reservations expressed by his predecessor.
Daily Trust reports that five weeks after the defection, the tendencies in the party are yet to be fully integrated, following a disagreement on sharing formula.
The two main tendencies in the party include the members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that joined the ruling party along with the governor and the Yari camp, comprising Senator Kabiru Marafa and old members of the APC.
The chairman of the national caretaker committee of the APC and Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni had declared Matawalle as the leader of the party in the state and dissolved the state executives.
The declaration by the Yobe governor was roundly rejected by Yari’s camp.
To address the situation, it was gathered that party chieftains including Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai intervened. But the disagreement festered until last weekend when Matawalle met Yari and Marafa in Kaduna, where he presented a new sharing proposal to them. Before the governor’s defection, the proposal was on 80/20 basis.
Addressing newsmen late on Wednesday, Yari announced the rejection of Matawalle’s latest proposal of 50/50 in sharing the party’s positions in the state.
“Before the governor concluded his plans to join APC, we made a proposal, which we were unable to submit to the Buni caretaker committee to control the party’s structure on an 80-20 basis but the state governors that came to the state recommended we share it 50-50.
“When the governor met Sen. Marafa, which is a welcome development, he said he wanted to have 70 per cent of the state structures. But we want to make our supporters know that we have rejected the offer and maintain 50-50 as suggested by the governors, which gives us the mandate to nominate the party chairman,” he said.
Yari also expressed dissatisfaction with Buni’s directive on the suspension of ward and local government executives which, he said, contravened the constitution of the party.
He stated that the sacked executives have gone to court which ordered all parties to maintain status quo.
On the call for a new party registration in the state, Yari said, “What the party should have said is that we should open the registration again and give opportunity for those who are just coming into the party to register.”
By Ismail Mudashir, Faruk Shuaibu (Abuja) & Shehu Umar (Gusau)
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