Former Zamfara state Governor Abdul-Aziz Yari has described Matawalle’s planned defection as a welcome development which won’t jeopardise his ambition to lead APC.
He said the move indicated that APC was well built in Zamfara state, had more followership and doing better than other parties.
He spoke in Kaduna Monday after a consultative meeting with thousands of APC stakeholders from the 14 local government areas of the state to further push his ambition.
Yari said: “We welcome Matawalle to the APC. We hope his coming will be a good development and add value to the party in the state. As a party, we need as many people as possible to make the party bigger. We held this meeting to inform our people of our decision of accepting for the governor to be in our party.
“When the governor comes into our party I will call his attention to focus on developmental issues and insecurity in the state. I kicked against his joining the party initially because of the nature of the way the information reached us, but whatever my reasons are because of my people. Some of our people who I’m representing are against his joining our party because they believe it would affect the oneness of the party.
“We are welcoming him because it shows that we are doing the right thing and APC is well built in Zamfara state. Our performance in Zamfara, Bauchi, Kano, Borno and Lagos states is one of the things that attracted him. We hope it would come with a success for the party in future elections.”
On his ambition to lead the party, the former governor said: “It is the people that chose me as their leader, it is not self-appointment. My aspiration is still in top gear, his joining APC will not jeopardise it. If the zoning favours my zone then it is 100%. Two things I am bringing to the party are reconciliation and unity.
“I’m still pushing to be APC national chairman because I know I can do better than most of the people as former state party secretary, state party chairman, House of Representatives member, two-term governor and chairman Governors Forum.”
The meeting was attended by ex-governor of Zamfara state, Alhaji Mahmuda Shinkafi, APC chairman in Zamfara state, former senators, former speaker of Zamfara state House of Assembly and other party chieftains.
Senators Kabiru Marafa and Ikra Bilbis were however absent with apology.