Katsina State governor-elect and Former Speaker House of Representatives Honorable Aminu Masari says he saw the fall of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) coming, a party he left due to lack of internal democracy.
He claimed that the PDP had always rigged elections in his state as the opposition had been winning since 2003.
“From 2003, it has been the opposition that has been winning the governorship election in terms of real votes. We all knew what the PDP was doing, after all, we were once members of the party,” Masari, who joined Congress of Progressives Change (CPC) after leaving PDP, told Vanguard in an interview.
“Since the entrance of General Muhammadu Buhari into politics, in Katsina, it has always been the opposition winning. We knew it and we knew what was done to scuttle the victory. Not that people did not vote. They voted for the opposition.
“In 2003, 2007, 2011, the people themselves knew that if there was free and fair election, their votes would give victory to the opposition. In 2011, if you remember, the party had the three Senate seats and had twelve in the House of Representatives. We lost the governorship and that was because people did not vote for CPC then, because some people in the CPC betrayed the party. We are lucky this time around that the party is united, and went into the election a united party. So, there were not too many problems in terms of rancour and disaffection . We were sure we would win,” Masari said.
CPC, founded by the now president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari later merged with two other parties to form the All Progressives Congress (APC). “Ask the security agencies, they would tell you that the APC was set win,” Masari adds.
The governor-elect promised that Nigerians, particularly the people of his state will experience a totally different way of leadership.
“I think people will continue to criticise. But, let us wait and see how APC is going to handle this state and country. I am sure it is going to be totally different from the way PDP ran the country. Even our president-elect said the APC is not going to be ruling party but a governing party. What that means to me is that the party is going to provide leadership, not rulership.
“In Katsina, we definitely believe there will be change. What we are saying concerning change, it is not about face or name, we are talking about changing our attitude. It is about change of how we run government, business. Whoever says there won’t be major difference in the way government is run, I will say the person should wait and see what APC is coming to the table with, you will see that there will be a huge departure from the way things are done. It is not going to be business as usual, not this time,” Masari said.