Marafa Knocks Gov Yari, Says ‘I’m Not Your Boy’

Senator Kabir Marafa of Zamfara West has slammed Governor Abdulaziz Yari for opposing President Muhammadu Buhari’s nomination of Ahmed Mahmud as the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for the state.

Marafa, at a plenary of the Senate on Thursday, said he is no boy to Yari, adding that the governor had no right to violate the order of the Senate.

Governor Yari had informed the upper legislative chamber that Mahmud is not from Zamfara.

Following Yari’s opposition of Mahmud, the Senate had rejected him as the REC nominee for the state.

It, however, took Marafa’s intervention for the Senate to agree to go back over Mahmud’s nomination.

Marafa said at the floor of the Senate, “Mr President you directed the matter back to the committee for further legislative action. I took that wise counsel from you that the committee will do the needful even when I know that there is nothing they can add to what they have done because their report was quite explicit and extensive,” he said.

“Mr President, order 1 (27) says ‘in considering the appointment of a nominee, the committee shall not call to witness any person as a witness other than the nominee himself.

“However, there may be a memorandum submitted to the committee, if any such memorandum should contain the names of the writer, a verifiable address, a clear and dated signature and it shall be accompanied by an affidavit.

“It is very clear that the only opposition to this nominee is coming from the governor of Zamfara state who wrote to the president that the nominee is not from Zamfara state but from Sokoto state. My distinguished colleague from Zamfara north stood on the floor to say the nominee is from Kebbi state.

“The committee did a very good job when they said the nominee was born in Gusau, went to school in Anka, he served as the commissioner of justice in Zamfara for four years. The governor wrote a petition, he has a right to write a petition but he cannot violate our order – his petition is not accompanied with an affidavit, therefore his petition is null and void.

“I want to state very clearly that the governor has no right, this is senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, we are not his boys, I am not his boy and this senate cannot be his rubber stamp. We are not holding somebody’s future because of his interest.”

In his remark, Senate President Bukola Saraki said until the Senate receives the report of the INEC committee, no action would be taken on Mahmud’s issue

“Honestly, I sympathise with you but as you know parliament is a place of procedures. No matter how good the course may be, we must continue to respect procedures because that is the only way the institution will survive,” Saraki said.