By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
As the feeling of abandonment within the fold of the party continues to grow, a chieftain, who was the former North-West chairman of the defunct Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) and presently of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Ahmadu Dan Zago has raised an alarm over series of crisis rocking the party, even as he called on the leadership of the party to quickly resolve the problem if the party is nurturing any serious plans towards the 2019 general elections.
Dan Zago, who is also a serving Special Adviser on Food Security to Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State, urged the party not to forget its past in a hurry.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen on Thursday in Abuja, the APC stalwart reminded the party leaders that they should not be in a hurry to forget that the party took power from an incumbent party, PDP.
The APC chieftain also urged President Muhammadu Buhari, who he described as the most supported president in Africa, to put in more efforts and remain the masses’ hero.
“It is important that they must put more effort and make sure that all these crises in the APC are tackled quickly. You must go house-to-house and settle all the aggrieved members of the APC.
“But if they keep quiet until they come to them and even when they do, they will just put a committee in place and then forget about it, they should forget about 2019 because Nigeria is dynamic.
“We should remember that we took the government from an incumbent and because we are now the incumbent, we should not be in a hurry to forget about the past. The other party refused to settle their differences and that led to their loss and disagreements,” he pointed out.
On the allegation by a group accusing them of being sponsored by some interests within the party ahead of the 2019 general elections, Dan Zago said: “They want to get something that is why they are saying all these.
“We are not angling for anything. Some of the people back then in CPC are now in the government but we, the founders, are not at the national level but most of us in our forum at the states are chairmen of boards, commissioners, advisers and so on.
“We are not jobless, even the president knows that we have jobs. We supported him since when he joined politics since 2002 and we were together with him, never changing any party.
“Most of them have changed parties but some of us have never, you can ask anybody. From ANPP to CPC to APC, we have not changed our party. And what that means is that we are not people who are given to selling ourselves.
“We are not asking President Buhari to do anything for us. We are not jobless neither are we looking for work. We have a lot of work to do. What we are saying is that we are the people that took CPC to its first destination which was the merger.
“In 2002, nobody forced us to support Buhari and the same happened in 2015, nobody forced us to support him. We saw his character, vision and everything; that is why we supported him and we still support him up till now”.
He further advised the president to be wary of those surrounding him and not change his forthrightness and love for the people.
He said that food security in Kano was now assured as the state now has a fertilizer company and exporting to other states.
“We have what is called the KASCO, it is a fertilizer company run by the government. This company was operating for 35 years before it collapsed.
“Recently, the governor approved monies to rebuild the company with over N500 million and the company has started to produce.
“It is working 24 hours now and we are even selling to neighbouring states like Kebbi and Katsina.
“There was nothing like this in the North, you would have to go to Port Harcourt or Lagos or even import it but because it’s being resuscitated, neighbouring states are coming to buy from us.
“Let me also tell you that the governor approved monies for loans to prospective farmers to the tune of 100 million.
“For rice production, they are on training just as we have bought well over 500 pumping machines for irrigation purposes.”
