Sokoto Governor Wamakko, Deputy Governor Part Ways

Deputy Governor Mukhtari Shagari of Sokoto State has stated that he would never leave the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and declare for the All Progressive Congress (APC) as Governor Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko did. Mr. Wamakko is one of several PDP governors called the G-7 who had formed a splinter group of the party before most of them announced their decision to join the APC.

Speaking to journalists at his residence, Mr. Shagari said he was one of the founding fathers of the PDP in 1998, adding that the party had done enough for him to remain in it. He stated that he had twice been made a senior minister under the party, he was given the ticket to contest the Sokoto state gubernatorial election in 2007, and later agreed to be the running mate to Mr. Wamakko when the governor decamped to the PDP. “Therefore, I cannot just abandon the party that made me and even honored me with national honors of Commander of the Federal Republic,” Mr. Shagari said. The deputy governor also added that, for the more than five months that Mr. Wamakko had been going around consulting, the governor had never even once briefed him of his intention to dump the PDP. A SaharaReporters investigation confirmed that Governor Wamakko had since stopped allowing Mr. Shagari to act as governor whenever the governor traveled out of the state. On Monday, Mr. Wamakko stated that the five governors who defected to the APC had resolved to dump the PDP for good. Addressing State House correspondents after a meeting of some PDP governors, including three of the G-7 governors, with President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja, Mr. Wamakko announced that five members of the PDP’s G-7 governors had defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC). He explained that he attended the meeting following a presidential invitation to him and his other colleagues. He said that the meeting gave him the opportunity to explain to Mr. Jonathan that the G-5 Governors who defected no longer consider themselves members of the PDP. “Well, the meeting went on very well because some of us came here as governors to discuss [a] PDP matter and our position has been known. On behalf of the five of us, I have already briefed Mr. President on our position as G-5 that we are no longer in the PDP mainstream and that we are already in another party,” Mr. Wamakko said. SaharaReporters