A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Sani Abdulahi Shinkafi, has stated that the ward congresses conducted by the party at the weekend in Zamafara state remains valid and no court can set it aside.
Shinkafi who stated that the congresses conformed to all constitutional provisions, noted that the former Zamfara state governor Abdulazeez Yari and Senator Kabiru Marafa were trying to enact what they did in 2019 to sabotage the efforts of the APC to win the 2023 general elections.
Shinkafi called on the national leadership of the party to apply sanctions by expelling them from the party.
Reacting to the boycott of the said congresses by the former governor, his supporters, Senator Kabiru Marafa and his supporters, Shinkafi stated that their protests amounted to a non-issue as they were not registered members of the party.
According to him, “Senator Kabiru Marafa and Abdul’aziz Yari, don’t have any genuine reason to go to court because they are not registered as members of APC during the last concluded APC revalidation/ registration exercise, because after the defection of the Governor Bello Mattawalle to APC, they refused to validate their membership of the party.
“You cannot build something on nothing, you cannot build a house without a concrete foundation?
“When you have not been registered as a duly member of APC, so, what locus standi do you have to challenge the exercise in court? Since they do not have membership cards as duly registered members of APC, they lack the locus to challenge any decision taken by the party. Party registration are used for the conduct congresses and primary election.
“All the party registers must be duly certified by the National headquarter of APC Abuja, their names are not in the registers. Therefore, with this development as far as I am concerned there is no faction in Zamfara APC and the congresses conducted last Saturday remained valid no Court can it set-aside” he added.
Shinkafi noted that “what I want to say here is that sometimes politicians talk anyhow and when I look at them I laugh, it is very unfortunate for somebody who has been a governor for eight years and a Senator to look down at the party leadership, trying to constitute themselves as bigger than the party, be as an Island. What I am saying is that the faction of Senator Kabiru Marafa and Abdul’aziz Yari, are the same.
“To say it clearly, I have never believed Kabiru Marafa has a faction in APC because since February this year everybody knows he has reconciled with the Abdul’aziz Yari faction thereby his faction seized to exist and all his structures has been collapsed.
“After he reconciled with Abdul’aziz Yari, I don’t think he has any faction any more. So for Sen Kabiru Marafa to now to claim that he held a congress leaving Abdul’aziz Yari it means that the reconciliation is not sincere and that there was no reconciliation, means that they are being economical with the truth.
“This is because if somebody can come to the public or go to print and electronic media and even some social media Network to pronounce his reconciliation with former Governor Abdul’aziz Yari and today when the National leadership of APC came to conduct ward Congresses, then he claims to have reconstituted himself again as a factional leader, then he is truly fooling himself, his followers and the followers of Abdul’aziz Yari.”
He debunked media reports that reported parallel ward congresses in the state.
“As far as I am concerned, there is no APC faction in the state; the ward congresses was conducted and it is over. We have done it and it is concluded.
“Our ward congresses is genuine and constitutional. There was no parallel ward congress apart from the one organized by the recognized party structure in the state”.
Shinkafi further explained that there was no court order that stopped them from holding the congress.
He said Senator Kabiru Marafa faction does not exist because there was an agreed reconciliation.
“After nine months, Marafa has come to say there is faction which I believe is not in existence in the state”.
