By: John Bassey, Zamfara.

The Zamfara state chapter of the All Progressive Congress, APC, has alerted the fear of mass defection in the heart of the leadership of the People Democratic Party, PDP, as the Minister of State for Defence, Hon. Dr. Bello Mohammed Matawale, plans to visit the state on Thursday.

This was contained in a statement by Comrade Yusuf Idris Gusau, APC Publicity Secretary, to Journalists in Zamfara.

In the statement, the Publicity secretary of the party said, the ruling PDP in Zamfara State is wonderfully confused, disjointed, afraid, and drowning in its negligence.

Whereby at every turn, in the affairs of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in any part of the country, its members, both highly placed and other supporters, break free from its non-performance to join the APC.

Our attention has just been attracted by such fears by the PDP through a press release signed by its state Publicity Secretary, Halliru Andi calling on the Honourable Minister of State for Defence, Dr Bello Mohammed Matawalle to stop his scheduled visit to Zamfara and stay at his ‘duty post’ as if he was one of their commissioners and affected by the draconian leadership of their leadership.

To start with, the PDP must know that Matawalle is a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, meaning the whole country is his area of coverage, or have they forgotten that not long ago, he operated from Sokoto state on the directives of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at a time Dauda Lawal as governor, refused to allow him to set base in Zamfara State.

Our recent announcement that the Honourable Minister will be visiting his home state may have sent real-time shivers in the ranks of the PDP, but so be it.

The minister cannot move an inch without the permission of the presidency, so all the hullabaloo coming from the PDP cannot stop him, moreover, as a citizen of Zamfara State and the leader of Zamfara State APC, he has all the rights and privileges to visit his home, his people, his party, his supporters and his admirers, sit, chat and dine with them, if the PDP can’t withstand this, they should remain indoors till the august visitor returns.

It’s also still fresh in our minds that when some Zamfara people recently visited the Minister in Abuja, the PDP members made a lot of noise, particularly saying Matawalle had turned public office for politicking, and now, he’s coming home, they can’t find any reason but to say he must remain in Abuja.

While it’s really not PDP’s affairs to interfere or meddle in Matawalle’s nor any other APC members’ social and political activities, we in the APC are happily looking forward to his homecoming during which we are very hopeful that more serious-minded politicians from other political parties especially the PDP will join us in the winning party.

What’s expected from the PDP is to call on Governor Dauda Lawal to return to the state and address the challenges of insecurity which he politicised instead of his perpetual unnecessary absence from the state.

His nonchalant attitude to the security of lives and properties of Zamfara citizens is known to every Nigerian because 39 people were slaughtered like rams, but he jetted out to the United Kingdom just to attend his son’s graduation in a chartered flight with Zamfara taxpayers’ money.

On the same day, over 200 people were abducted, others were killed at Banga village area of Kaura Namoda local government of the state, and the PDP governor Dauda abandoned them without any concern or government sympathising with the victims’ families.

PDP must bury itself in shame for failing to fulfil its campaign promises to the electorates because time is not in their favour as people of the state now understand their lies and propaganda.

Let them change to another plan because we are on top of this and people are wiser enough now.