You're indebted to me, Wamakko replies PDP, Presidency

Sokoto State Governor, Aliyu Wamakko, has said that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, would not have won any seat in the state in the 2007 election if not for his timely intervention.

The governor, who was reacting to claims by the Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Ahmed Gulak, that he was a stranger in the party, said that it was the PDP that begged him to join the party having seen its precarious position.

Wamakko said that Gulak's claims, which were laughable and borne out of ignorance and mischief, were deliberately aimed at scoring cheap political points.

The governor, who spoke to Vanguard through his Special Assistant on Press Affairs, Abubakar Dangusa, noted that Gulak was deliberately trying to twist the facts of his entry into the PDP and downplay the strategic role he played to salvage the party from extinction in Sokoto State at the time.

Wamakko said that the Presidency and the PDP should be grateful to him for accepting to use his clout and political sagacity to win elections at all levels for the party in Sokoto.

The governor said: 'The Presidency and the PDP leadership should show me respect and gratitude after begging me to leave my party and join them so as to help them win the state from the reigning ANPP at the time.

'Gulak should be bold enough to tell the world that it was Wamakko that made it possible for the dead PDP in Sokoto to come back to life and begin to win elections from the ward to the national level.

'The coming of Wamakko to the PDP conquered the state for the party and paved the way for it to be heard in the state. The records are there for all to see.'

The political adviser to the President, Mr. Ahmed Gulak, in a television programme monitored in Abuja on Monday, castigated the governors of Sokoto, Niger and Adamawa states for fighting the same party that offered them opportunities to become governors from their unpopular parties.

Gulak, who absolved President Goodluck Jonathan of any blame in the unfolding intra-party feud, said the dissenting governors were not interested in making peace but pursuing personal political interest at the expense of the nation.