BY OUR REPORTER

Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State who decamped from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) last month, rebuffed the entreaties of six APC governors that were sent by the party’s national leadership to talk him out of his defection plan. This was revealed by the APC vice chairman, north central zone, Alhaji Suleiman Wambai in an exclusive interview in Lafia.

Wambai a member of APC’s National Working Committee (NWC) said, “We sent about six governors to go and talk to Tambuwal, Tambuwal refused because he was cajoled by Bukola and Wike that they will support him to be president and now Bukola is in the race.”

Both Tambuwal and senate president, Bukola Saraki recently purchased the PDP’s nomination form to become the party’s presidential flag bearer. They are among the 12 other aspirants also vying to be the party’s presidential candidate. They are expected to slug it out at the party’s primary election slated for October 6.

Commenting on the high number of presidential aspirants among which are prominent decampees from the APC, Wambai remarked, “Remember there is only one presidential slot. It is like 12 people with only one blanket to cover themselves up from the harmattan- it cannot go round all of them, so it is either they fight over it or tear it to pieces. I think that is what is going to happen”. On the chances of APC winning next year’s presidential election the APC vice chairman stated, “At the moment we have 24 sitting governors, PDP has 11 and APGA one. How can you compare that quantitatively with someone that has less than half? With the popularity, integrity of President Buhari and the job we are doing, that will give us an edge”.

He continued, “Another thing is that the people of this country cannot forget and forgive PDP in a hurry, where the resources of this country were stolen, the economy brought to its knees …….. The Nigerian people are aware of all these; they know who is the enemy of the masses, who has the country at heart. There is no gainsaying the fact that Mr. President is a president with high integrity, he has no foreign bank account, no mansion or estate in Dubai, etc. He has a lot of goodwill from the Nigerian masses, Nigerian masses love Buhari and Buhari loves them”.

On the party’s insistence for Saraki to relinquish the post of senate president, the north central zone vice chairman said that that was the honourable thing for Saraki to do having decamped to the minority party, citing the example of former minority leader Godswill Akpabio who resigned his position upon defecting to APC. Wambai added that the party was working quietly underground to have the senate president removed, democratically and legally.