Niger, Kano, Sokoto and Jigawa States governors yesterday said they remained committed to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the wake of media reports that they have concluded plans to defect to opposition political party.
Babangida Aliyu, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Aliyu Wamakko and Sule Lamido respectively stated this in separate reactions following their absence at the party’s peace parley in Kaduna on Saturday.
Reacting through his Chief Press Secretary Danladi Ndayebo, the Niger state governor, Muazu Babangida Aliyu, who is also the chairman of the northern governors’ forum, denied he would ditch the PDP for the opposition.
Malam Ndayebo quoted the governor as saying, “I remain a loyal member of the PDP. I won’t defect to any party. The crisis within the party will only make us emerge stronger.”
Similarly, Kano State governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso refuted the report suggesting that he was among seven other governors were set to leave the PDP as part of the political calculations towards 2015.
The governor position was made known by his Director of Communications and Public Relations Strategy Halilu Ibrahim Dantiye who quoted the governor as saying he will not abandon the part he helped to build from scratch.
“It’s not true. His Excellency is a founding member of the PDP; he laboured hard to build the party in Kano and at the national level. So that report is figment of the imagination of the reporter,” he said.
Underscoring his commitment to the party, Dantiye said: “You will recall that he left government in 2003 and remained in the opposition in Kano State for eight years during which he reorganised the party and took over from the ruling party in 2011.”
He further explained that Kwankwaso was actually in Kaduna to attend the meeting but fell ill ahead of the event, so he could not show up at the venue.
In a press statement, Sokoto State commissioner of information Alhaji Danladi Bako said it was not true that Governor Wamakko was planning to leave the PDP.
The statement reads in part: “I wish to hereby state categorically and with all due powers conferred on me as Commissioner of Information, Sokoto State that this story is not true and is without basis. I call on the public to discountenance the story and ignore it.”
The commissioner also said Wamakko’s absence at the Kaduna meeting was not to suggest he planned to defect from the PDP. “Governor Wamakko remains a strong, loyal and committed PDP member, suggestions on internal wrangling notwithstanding.”
