21st April, 2022
Senator Ahmad Babba Kaita (APC, Katsina North), who represents President Buhari in the senate, has dumped the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The move may signal a change in the political leaning of the state, which was firmly in PDP’s hands until 2015.
Kaita announced his defection from the ruling APC in a statement by his media aide, Malam Abdulkadir Lawal.
The senatorial district comprises 12 local government areas, including Daura, Buhari’s hometown.
Babba Kaita was elected to the 8th Senate in 2018 to fill the vacuum in the senatorial zone following the death of Senator Mustapha Bukar.
He was re-elected again in 2019.
Babba Kaita said his movement to PDP was informed by his determined desire and opportunity to provide succour and much-needed dividends of democracy to his people.
“The willful refusal of the administration to uphold the basic foundation of democracy has also found expression in the marginalization of critical stakeholders by the state government and the leadership of the party at the state level.
“The recent Congresses at State and ward levels, with no identified genuine pro-government delegates, are clearly a rape of grassroots politicians and genuine party foot-soldiers who were rigged out of open contest.
“The total absence of a level playing field speaks volumes about an already orchestrated decline to antidemocratic principles and challenges every good conscience, including ours. All politics is local.
“As an advocate of transparency, accountability and continuous entrenchment of popular will, Senator Kaita cannot afford to continue sharing the tent of undemocratic merchandise clearly being executed against his people by the state government and party leadership.
“A clear stock taking of where Katsina State stands today, is already enough burden on good conscience. Our good people, in their millions, have excused deprivation, poverty, and hunger for too long.
“They have endured the risk to their lives and wellbeing imposed by the incapacity of the state government to tackle insecurity head on.
“They have been denied enough, already, by the state government. We cannot deny them their right of choice.
“The serial denial of the people’s mandate at the recent Congresses among other related developments has finally found expression in our answer to the clarion call of our people to vacate the APC following very wide consultations” he said.
Malam Abdulkadir Lawal said Babba Kaita is not a “bandwagon politician.”
“The decision to join the Peoples’ Democratic Party represents the ideals of representativeness in mandate, goodwill, and an even more determined desire and opportunity to provide succour, comfort and the much-needed dividends of democracy to the people”.