Ahead of yesterday’s defection of Zamfara State governor, Bello Matawalle from the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), to the All Progressives Congress (APC), along with three senators, five members of the House of Representatives and 18 members of the state House Assembly, the State Deputy governor, Mahdi Aliyu Gusau, two Rep members and six members of the State’s House of Assembly have declined to defect with the governor.
According to a source in Zamfara State Government House, the younger Gusau departed for Abuja to avoid the defection programme.
He said, “The deputy governor has travelled to Abuja because he does not want to be part of our programme. He said he cannot dump his father General Aliyu Mohammed (rtd) for Matawalle. His father is the oracle of Zamfara PDP”, the source explained.
Another source disclosed that the Sokoto scenario in 2019 is about to repeat itself, when the then State governor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, dumped the APC for PDP. The then Sokoto deputy governor, Aliyu Ahmed, stayed back in APC.
Efforts to get the deputy governor to speak on the matter through phone yielded no result as he did not pick his calls. Text messages sent to him were also not replied to.
