Katsina: 20 PDP Lawmakers Threaten Defection

Katsina: 20 PDP Lawmakers Threaten Defection

Barring last minutes change of plan, the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) in Katsina State may be set for the worst defection
of its life time as no fewer than 20 of its members at the State
House of Assembly have threatened to dump the party for the
opposition All Progressive Congress (APC).

Our correspondent gathered that the lawmakers are aggrieved
that leadership of the party denied them chance to either seek
re-election or seek other higher offices from their current position
as members of the state assembly.

A competent source told our Correspondent that the aggrieved
lawmakers met over the weekend in Kaduna where they resolved that with the imposition of candidates by Governor Alhaji Ibrahim Shehu
Shema and the party they were left with no option other than to
leave the party.

One of the aggrieved lawmakers who does not want his name
mentioned said that they had started making contacts with the
leadership of the APC in the state, adding “we have been assured
of a level playing ground.”

The lawmakers according to the source cited impunity in the
selection of candidates that will fly the PDP flag in 2015
elections as the major reason for planning to dump the party.

“When we met with the governor during stakeholders meeting he
said he had no anointed candidates. But alas when the
reconciliation process began the governor started imposing
candidates who are not even popular.”

This planned mass defection is coming barely two days after a
member of the state House of Assembly representing Kurfi Local
Government, Alhaji Danlami Kurfi, widely seen as the backbone of
PDP in Kurfi, defected to the opposition APC.

Danlami who picked the APC House of Representatives
nomination form for Dutsin-ma- Kurfi Federal constituency,
alleged that it was the governor’s impunity that chased him out
of the PDP, saying “Katsina PDP is finished.”

However, speaking shortly after a closed door meeting with
members of PDP Board of Trustee from the state, the Katsina
state PDP chairman, Rabiu Gambo Bakori said those who had
either defected or were planning to defect were not genuine
members of the PDP.

Report from Leadership