No APC primary election took place in Zamfara, Marafa insists

Mathew Dadiya, Abuja

The crisis befalling the Zamfara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is far from over, as the senator representing Zamfara Central, Senator Kabiru Marafa, insisted on Sunday that primary election was not conducted in the state.

While blaming the governor for the crisis, Marafa said that God, the angels and the entire world know that, in reality, no party primary took place in the state chapter of the ruling party.

The senator said this while fielding questions from State House correspondents on political developments in Zamfara State.

He also faulted Governor Abdul’azeez Yari for initiating legal action over the matter and asked God to forgive him (Yari) for “misleading” the people of the state on the issue.

“Yari offended God for insisting that APC conducted party primaries in the state,” he said.

He, however, commended the Court of Appeal for “an excellent job,’’ saying he initially thought he might not get justice from his appeal on the matter.

The Appeal Court had, on March 25, nullified the primary election conducted by the Yari faction of the state chapter of the APC against the previous ruling by state high court.

Marafa said: “It is a promise that God will never help injustice against justice. So, at the end of the whole thing, truth will prevail, undoubtedly. No fear about that.

The truth is, there were no primaries in the state, the world knows, Allah knows, the angel knows, everybody knows.

“And I want to use this opportunity to thank the President of the Court of Appeal for an excellent job she did. You know, we were quite apprehensive from the beginning, fearing that we might not get justice.”

“But they have done justice to that case and they have made judiciary proud and the people of Nigeria proud. If that has not been done, I was afraid where we were heading to.

“I read their judgement and I was really very proud of the way it was written. That is how judgments are written, not the way the state judgement was written,’’ the senator said.

Marafa, who lamented that Yari’s actions had put the people of the state to shame, prayed that God would forgive him for what he had done to the state.

According to him, a leader telling lies in a state like Zamfara that practices Sharia is an anathema, and leaders deserve prayers from their followers to avert God anger.”

“I pray, may God forgive him for what he has done, because to us, God has paid us immensely,’’ he added.

On the assertion that he Marafa is playing the role of a spoiler and that he should have let everything go since the national leadership of the APC had endorsed the result of Yari’s faction on the APC primaries, Marafa rhetorically asked: “Is the national leadership of the APC equal to Nigeria? The answer is ‘No.’

“We are talking about the laws of Nigeria and not talking about personalities. No matter how big you are, you cannot circumvent the law.

You cannot break the law by your right hand and then use your left hand to say you want to amend it.

“You cannot commit a criminal act and then approach the court and say; court, legalize it for me.

You cannot commit criminality and then hide under the umbrella of party and now say that ‘because the party is going to lose. Who is party? The people have the party.

“It is not the prince in Zamfara, it is not the stones, it is not the land, it is not the roads, it is not the wells or anything in the state; it is the people of the state that have the party.

“So, if the people are disenfranchised, if the people are cheated, we all have a duty to rise up above party lines.

After all, I came to the Senate as an ANPP member, today I’m APC. Most of the people you see today talking as APC, they were something else before.

“So, it’s not about APC for God’s sake. The National Chairman of this party was seen condemning and saying that primaries are not supposed to be conducted by state governors, or by state party chairmen.

“You can’t just change overnight. I am trying to speak the truth, even against myself. And that is exactly what I did when it happened,’’ he said.

On the way forward in the state, the senator advised all those not satisfied with the Appeal Court judgment to seek redress in the Supreme Court.

“Well, there is still one last option left. It depends on what our opponents feel. There is the Supreme Court option.

If they are desirous of exploiting that, they are constitutionally and legally allowed to do so. If they are not, so be it.

“Before, they were dragging us, but we are now dragging them. We are not pleading with them not to go to the Supreme Court.

The most important thing that Nigerians need to know is that we are not the aggressors as far as these problems are concerned.

“We are defending ourselves, defending the people of Zamfara State,” he said.

Festus Okoye, a National Commissioner with the Independent National Electoral Commission and chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, had on a Television programme, said that only the Supreme Court would determine fate of those elected in Zamfara.

The affected elected officials include the governor-elect, deputy governor-elect, senators-elect, House of Representatives members-elect and House of Assembly members-elect.