Why I joined APC – Gov Matawalle

The Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle, said on Friday he joined the All Progressives Congress (APC) in order to bring peace to the state.

The governor, who stated this when he featured in The Osasu Show (TOS) programme, expressed optimism that the security challenges in the state would be effectively tackled now that he has joined the APC.

Matawalle joined the ruling party on Tuesday.

The governor’s statement came just a few days after the state former governor, Abdulaziz Yari; and Senator Kabiru Marafa rejected him as APC leader in Zamfara.

The duo made the remarks in a chat with BBC Hausa Service after a meeting with the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, on Wednesday.

Their comments were in response to a statement credited to the Chairman of APC Caretaker Committee, Mai Mala Buni, who said Matawalle is the APC leader in Zamfara following his defection to the party from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He said: “The issue of security is not just for APC or PDP (Peoples Democratic Party). We have to put all hands on deck so that we can solve that problem.

“Politics is about interest and confidence. Many of the politicians have changed from one party to another, so it is not a new thing and I decided to change so that I can bring more peace to my state.

“We have achieved tremendous successes, particularly on the issue of banditry where we used kinetic and non-kinetic approaches. These approaches we used, in particular, dialogue, it worked but you know that even with the approach of dialogue, we have to bring a political solution to it.

READ ALSO: Gov Matawalle completes switch to APC

“So, I want to make sure that during this my tenure, I will bring everybody in the state together under one basket; that we should forget our political differences, work together and try to bring more peace to the state.

“This is a ruling party where we have the Senate and members of the House of Representatives. We are stronger and I believe people will benefit more than before. Where my hand does not reach before, now I can get what I want.

“I believe with this coming together, I’m going to work hard with my other colleagues so that we can get more from the federal government, particularly on the issue of insecurity. Even before I decamped, I knew the arrangement Mr. President had made to bring more equipment to our security agencies to fight the criminality in the northern region.

“I believe we will get more troops to come and flush out the criminals. I assure you that you will see a lot of changes, because we will get more improvement on each facility that we have.”

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