The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has taken their pound of flesh on Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara state.
What the party could not get through the court, they now achieve through the ballot box, following the declaration of Lawan Dare as governor elect of the March 18 governorship election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
According to the results announced by INEC Lawan scored a total of 377,726 votes to defeat the incumbent who in 2021 defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, under which he contested the governorship election he has now lost to the opposition.
Matawalle, according to INEC polled 311,976.
Those familiar with the politics of the state, insist that the people have now shown to the governor that he cannot take them for granted. The electorate are angry with him for taking their mandate to another party, they said.
The results of last Saturday election, analysts said is a strong message by Zamfara people that the state is largely PDP.
Since 2021 he dumped the PDP, the battle to unseat him through the court had been very fierce, but the governor won the court cases instituted by the PDP to remove him from office.
The battle to unset him started on July 11, 2021 when the PDP dragged him and his deputy to court seeking to remove them from their positions.
On February 8, 2022 the high Court sitting in Gusau, the state capital struck out the case filed by the PDP on the basis that the govrnor cannot be unseated due to his defection.
Five months after, on July 15, the Court of Appeal in Sokoto affirmed the judgement of the lower court saying the governor must remain in office despite his defection from the party he rode on to power as the state governor.
Recall that Matawalle lost the Bakura/Maradun Constituency seat in 2015, but later became the 2019 PDP governorship nominee and got to the office after a Supreme Court ruling disqualified the original winner.
But midway into power, Governor Matawalle defected to APC by dumping the party that gave him the ticket to run.
“As from today, I Bello Matawallen Maradun, governor of Zamfara, I am happy to announce my defection from the PDP to the APC. As of today, I am a full APC member and leader of APC in Zamfara.
“I am calling on all APC stakeholders in the state to join hands with me to build the party and move the state forward,” Matawalle said.
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