Don’t Blame Saraki for Your Woes, Zakari Cautions Kogi Ex-lawmaker
Former spokesman of the House of Representatives, Hon. Zakari Mohammed, has described the insinuation that former Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, is responsible for the current crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kogi State, as mischievous and irresponsible.
Zakari, in a statement issued recently, said it was very unfortunate that his former colleague in the House of Representative, who represented Yagba federal constituency, Sunday Karimi, would be linked to a statement that attributed the current crisis in party to Saraki for allegedly offering automatic tickets to some federal legislators on the platform of PDP in Kogi State in the last general election.
He said Karimi stood the truth on its head and acted as a sore loser by holding Saraki responsible for a decision taken by the national leadership of the party that all National Assembly members who defected to PDP should be given automatic ticket.
According to him, “It was an open secret that both in PDP and All Progressives Congress (APC), after the gale of defections in the National Assembly before the last general election, members who defected to the respective parties and those who refused to defect were given automatic tickets. And except in a few isolated cases, this directive of the national leadership was respected across board.
“How then can Karimi, who lost in his aspiration to leave the House of Representatives in order to slug it out with Senator Dino Melaye for the senatorial ticket, blame Saraki for his inability to get the ticket? Was it Saraki that conducted the screening and the primaries in Kogi State?
“Karimi is a sore loser. He was being immature and not behaving like a good sportsman. Why did he not challenge the national leadership of the party when it took that decision? And how could Kogi State case be different when the same directive affected all the party chapters across the country?”
Zakari, therefore, advised Karimi to desist from dragging the name of Saraki into his personal grouse and loss because “Saraki is not just a national leader of the PDP but also the leader of the party in the North-Central zone.
“We will not tolerate a situation where a Karimi who, because, he could not get the party’s senatorial ticket in the last election would now be sabotaging genuine efforts of the party to win the next governorship polls in the state by making statements aimed at derailing genuine efforts to unite all members behind the party as the governorship election approaches,” he noted.