Bello Matawalle Dauda Lawal of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has made history by becoming the first PDP governorship candidate to have ever won a governorship election contest in the state through the ballot.
Dauda of the PDP defeated the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, Bello Matawalle in the election that was keenly contested.
Dauda of PDP scored 377,726 votes to defeat Matawalle of APC who scored 311,976.
Although the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) won the presidential election in the state but lose the governorship election. This has caused confusion in the minds of many political observers in the country.
However, there is a certain reason that may be considered responsible for the failure of the APC in Zamfara State, a state that has never been won by ballot by the PDP since 1999.
Politically, the Zamfara State chapter of the APC has two opposing factional leaders before the defection of Marawalle to the APC. The crisis between the two factions of APC in the state gave birth to Matawalle of PDP, then overturning the victory of APC in 2019.
With the defection of Matawalle to APC, the leadership crisis became worsened between the camp of Governor Bello Matawalle, former Governor Abdulazeez Yari, and Senator Kabiru Marafa.
During the presidential election, a combination of Marafa and Yari could not conveniently convince their aggrieved followers to vote uniformly for Bola Ahmed Tinubu desire the fact that they are all fully in support of Tinubu's presidential ambition. This is because the two camps find it difficult to align with the camp of Governor Matawalle.
Governor Matawalle regarded himself as the leader of APC in Zamfara State and this has further worsened the state of the divisiveness of the party in the state. This is because the camps of Yari and Marafa have more followers than Matawalle.
The failure of Yari and Marafa to unanimously work for the second term reelection of Matawalle had badly influenced many of their followers to cast their votes for PDP against the party.
We may have to recall that Marafa's ambition to become Governor of Zamfara State is still very much alive and Yari's alleged attempt to defect to PDP was stalled by Tinubu's presidential ambition. Likewise that of Marafa.
Zamfara State's chapter of APC lost to PDP, purposely because of disunity and factionalisation of the party.
Category: Forum
Tag: Pdp ZAMFARA APC
Written by Ejiro Hassan (ejiro)
Published 3/21/2023 7:05:20 PM