Ex-Minister Alhassan’s defection: She is a paperweight, says APC

The Taraba State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that the exit of former Minister of Women Affairs, Hajia Aisha Alhassan, from the party made no meaningful impact on the party.
The state Chairman of the party, Alhaji Ibrahim El-Sudi, said this in an interview with newsmen at the end of a closed door meeting with the Chairman of the party’s Caretaker Committee and Extraordinary Convention, Mai Mala Buni, on Tuesday in Abuja.
“That is a media hype, as you can see, all the juggernauts, movers and shakers of APC in Taraba are behind me.
“So, one person cannot destroy or do anything to APC,” El-Sudi said.
He said the former minister did not command so much political weight as the public was made to believe.
He further said that Alhassan only polled 16,000 votes when she left APC to contest the election in another party, while the APC candidate polled over 340,000 votes.
“So, her movement has not shaken APC in Taraba. She is a paper weight. It is in the heart of Taraba people that they want APC and they will continue to support APC”, he said.
El-Sudi also spoke on the essence of his visit, saying that he led a delegation of Taraba APC to thank Buni “for the good work he is doing for the party.
“We also brought the problems of Taraba to the committee to look into them, with a view to solving them.
“After addressing the chairman and the committee, we were assured that they would look into our problem in order to solve the issues that are hanging in the air,” he said.
El-Sudi expressed confidence in the ability of the committee to address the Taraba issue, saying that it had so far restored peace in the party across the country.
“The chairman is a tested and trusted leader, he was a party secretary in his state.
“He knows the plethora of problems facing the party and he has already taken steps toward solving most of them,” El-Sudi said.
He appealed to the Federal Government to address the problem of infrastructure deficit in Taraba.
According to him, Taraba needs to have good road network from Numan to Jalingo.
He also expressed the need for the federal government to expedite action toward the completion of the Mambilla hydro electric power project.
In another development, the former Gov. of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, who was also at the APC national secretariat, said the state was ready for true reconciliation among the aggrieved members.
Yari, whose faction had engaged the Sen. Kabiru Marafa-led faction of the party in a supremacy battle since 2019, led a delegation of Zamfara APC to a meeting with Buni’s committee.
He said that to achieve genuine reconciliation in the state, all the aggrieved parties “must come to a round table with open mind.
“If everyone is ready for reconciliation, we will know because we have been in this game since 1999 and by God’s Grace, we can predict the future of APC in Zamfara in 2023,” he said.