The crisis rocking the Zamfara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) may be short-lived as the two major actors, former governor, Abdulaziz Yari and former senator Kabiru Marafa were on Monday reconciled.
The leaders of the two main factions accepted to sheath their swords in the interest of the party after a reconciliation meeting which lasted more than two hours facilitated by the National Chairman, APC Caretaker / Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Mai Mala Buni at the party’s national secretariat, Abuja.
The crisis rocking the Zamfara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) may be short-lived as the two major actors, former governor, Abdulaziz Yari and former senator Kabiru Marafa were on Monday reconciled.
The leaders of the two main factions accepted to sheath their swords in the interest of the party after a reconciliation meeting which lasted more than two hours facilitated by the National Chairman, APC Caretaker / Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Mai Mala Buni at the party’s national secretariat, Abuja.
Briefing journalists after the parley, Buni described the reconciliation efforts as a milestone in achieving his Committee’s mandate of reconciling and rebuilding the party.
Mai Mala Buni said “as you can see today, we are able to achieve reconciliation of our stakeholders in Zamfara State and by extension is the reconciliation of the entire Zamfara APC as a family.
“With this, we have achieved a milestone as Caretaker Committee of this great party, our primary mandate being reconciliation of our members across the country and rebuilding and repositioning of this party at all levels”.
Assuring party leadership that the rift is over, former governor Abdulaziz Yari said he is genuinely committed to the foregoing past misgivings between himself and Marafa in recent years and look forward to uniting all aggrieved stakeholders with the aim of regaining Zamfara State from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2023.
He said “this meeting lasted for not more than two to three hours and alot of things have been discussed but the most important of what is being discussed, understanding our coming together is paramount for any success now and in the future.
“We have built this party from zero level to where we are and Zamfara has ever remain ANPP- APC State and what led to that success is our coming together. So that togetherness is what we’re working to achieve in the future and this is the starting point.
“This is not symbolic, it’s real that we understand all of us are human beings bound to make mistakes and that mistakes can be corrected so that we can come together to achieve a target and go and bring back our party to limelight in the State and also to maintain in the center.
“A lot of things have been said but the most important thing is we are together and this is the begining and what happened in the past will never repeat itself ”.
Senator Kabiru Marfa said he embraced the reconciliatory efforts of the party leadership having realised that reconciliation is an integral part of every human endeavour.
Promising that the over two years crisis will strengthen APC in the state, Marafa said “I hope our own mistake will serve as a source of strength for all of us and for APC itself especially and the country in general.
“Our country is facing very serious challenges. Our party was given an unprecedented support that has never been given any party in Nigeria and we owe the party and Mr President a duty to support them and support Mr President to deliver especially for us coming from Zamfara State and the North West in particular we are facing very serious problems and for that reason I think no amount of effort will be too much.
“I received a call from my my friend and leader, the Governor of Yobe State to come and attend a meeting.
Despite the short notice, I felt anybody that calls you for reconciliation meeting, he or she calls you to goodness and I attended because of that reason and I’m very happy with the robust decisions or discussions rather that we had in the office.
“I want to use this medium to tell Nigerians today we initiated the process, let me put it that way because we are not the only people we have behind us and these people have absolute confidence in all of us.
“So today marks the very beginning in the chapter of APC in Zamfara State and I hope, given the assurances that I heard from various speakers during the meeting that at the end of the tunnel we would see light.
“I thank Nigerians for understanding with all of us especially during the period of crisis and for our supporters back home I want to assure all of them that both of us are committed to their welfare and their progress we sleep with them in our hearts and we wake up with them in our hearts.
“We may not necessarily measure up to their expectations because we are human beings and Zamfara is over 4 million people so there is no way we can please each and every one of them but I want to use this medium to tell them that we will do our utmost best all of us here to make sure that we carry majority of them in whatever decision we are going to take and God is going to see us through”.
The Daily Times recalled that the supremacy battle between the two leaders led to the loss of Zamfara, an APC traditional state to the Governor Bello Matawalle led People’s Democratic Party (PDP) during the last governorship election.
At the peak of the crisis, Marafa ditched the party for the PDP and allegedly worked against the APC at the polls.
