The Adamawa State chapter of the All Progressives Congress has declared that despite the defection of some Chieftains from the party, its foundation remains solid ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Speaking exclusively to Arewa PUNCH on Monday in Yola, the party’s Organising Secretary, Mustapha Ribadu said that the exit of a few members to other political parties can not affect the election fortunes of the party in state.
“Wining elections is not about individuals, it is about the grassroots people that are behind the party,” he stressed.
“The people that left the party, who are their followers that followed them? he queried.
“Senator Jibrilla Bindow was a governor with over 21 commissioners, 21 local government chairmen, over 700 aides, over 200 councillors, but none of them joined him to his new party, so can you say Adamawa APC has lost anything?” he asked again.
The APC chieftain stressed that despite Bindow being a former governor and hailing from Mubi, he lost his polling unit, ward, his local government and the entire northern senatorial zone during the last general elections.
“With this political results, what is the political value of Bindow?” Ribadu further queried no one in particular .
While x-raying the political weight of those that left APC in Adamawa State, he pointed out that Senator Aisha Binnani, as a governorship candidate during the last general election lost her polling unit and her ward.
“Senator Aisha Binnani’s ambassadors have changed their names to Adamawa APC ambassadors who are now her followers that joined her in the new party?”
Continuing, Ribadu maintained, “We can see that the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, left the People’s Democratic Party to another party, his biological son Adamu Atiku is still in PDP as commissioner, just as all his political allies are still in PDP. So a one-man squad is of no use in politics,” he said.
Ribadu pointed out that the big family names are no longer important in Adamawa State politics due to the years of deciet the people suffered from such big names in the past.
He admitted that there was what he described as controllable and manageable disagreement in the Adamawa APC, pointing out that “a big family must have divergent opinions to disagree and to agree.”
On the issue of plans to replace Vice President Kassim Shetima, he said that the president has the constitutional powers to pick his deputy from any part of the country.
“What we are interested in is good governance. It is not about where the vice president comes from or who is the vice president. If the president brings someone from Lagos State who can work for him in the interest of Nigeria, he should pick the person.
“In the United States, there are times a president and vice president would emerge from the same zone. What is paramount is good governance,” he stated.
