By Chidi Levi
The People’s Democratic Party, PDP, will soon loose Zamfara state, The Source can authoritatively report.
Highly placed All Progressives Congress, APC, sources have told thesourceng.com that barring any last minute change of mind, Zamfara state Governor, Bello Muhammad Matawalle will, before the end of this year, defect to the ruling party.
If the Zamfara governor defects, he will be the second PDP governor after Ebonyi state governor, Dave Umahi, to dump the former ruling party.
Governor Matawalle’s impending defection came as The Source magazine unearths the real reason behind Umahi’s defection.
Matawalle became governor by default. He was thoroughly beaten by the APC candidate in the March 2019 Gubernatorial election, but became governor after a debilitating intra- party squabbles in the APC led to a series of legal tussles which climaxed with the Supreme court’s annulment all Primary elections conducted by the Zamfara APC.
This magazine learnt that a PDP governor of South south extraction was instrumental to Matawalle picking the PDP gubernatorial ticket, and went further to support him financially during the litigation process.
However, no sooner had Matawalle survived all the legal landmines, and got his Governorship confirmed than the said South-south Governor started seeing himself as his godfather, the magazine was told.
“The overbearing influence of this South-south governor prompted Matawalle to make up his mind to dump the party, just six months after coming into office. He was to leave the PDP last year, but was prevailed upon by political associates to tarry a while”, party sources inform the Magazine.
According to our sources, the proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back, and further nudged the Zamfara governor into the decision to jump ship were signs that the said South-south governor who wields enormous influence in the PDP, was poised to cause the party to deny him a second term ticket for the 2023 governorship election.
An APC chieftain who spoke to The Source puts it in perspective: “Matawalle is still a young man and a first term governor. So, he has to fight for his political future while there is still enough time to do so. Every governor wants to do a second term, and from all indications, for Matawalle, the prospect of that under the PDP is dim. Of course, he would not want to remain in a party where he will later be told: No second term ticket for you”
Besides the above, Matawalle has also been under pressure from North West Governors and party chieftains from the zone to join the APC.
It was learnt that the governors and party stalwarts have made several overtures to Matawalle to join them in the APC, reminding him that Zamfara is naturally an APC state and, therefore, has no business being in the opposition.
To further ginger his interest, automatic ticket by the Northwest APC for the 2023 guber election is being dangled before the Zamfara governor.
When the Ebonyi state governor said he left the PDP because of the alleged injustice the party meted out to the south east, he was only merely scratching the surface.
Impeccable sources told thesourceng.com that in the course of Umahi’s consultations for the party’s vice Presidential ticket for 2023, he was made to understand, to his chagrin, that the party has since settled for two possibilities in respect of its 2023 presidential ticket to the utter exclusion of South east, despite the repeated insistence by the PDP National leadership that it was yet to take a stand on zoning the ticket.
Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto state ( presidential candidate), is billed to pair with the influential South south governor mentioned above ( vice Presidential candidate), or a repeat of the Atiku Abubakar candidacy but this time around, with a former South west governor as a running mate.
It was at that juncture that the Ebonyi state governor, concluded that the South east, despite being its stronghold since 1999, does not actually have a future with the PDP.
He thus vowed to trigger off a chain of events that will bring it to its knees in the region.
And, in keeping with this vow, Umahi and his Imo start counterpart, Hope Uzodinma, are now impressing it upon governors Okezie Ikpeazu( Abia) and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi( Enugu) on why the South east should empty into the APC.
The Source magazine gathered that PDP’s alleged schemings against the South east actually started in the run up to the 2019 presidential election.
Competent party sources reveal that, had Tambuwal won the October 2018 presidential primaries, he would have picked the said former Southwest governor as running mate.
It was further learnt that certain elements within the PDP, including the South South governor, actually blamed the party’s defeat at the 2019 presidential polls on Atiku’s choice of a running mate from the South east in the person of the solid former Anambra governor, Peter Obi.
Meanwhile, though Umahi stridently kicked against Obi’s choice as Atiku’s running mate in the 2019 presidential election, and worked against the Atiku/Obi ticket, the magazine has been told that prominent Igbo leaders who are in the know of PDP’s secret decision on its 2023 presidential ticket, are in tacit support of the Ebonyi governor’s move to the APC.
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