Former Zamfara Central Senator, Kabiru Marafa, has declared that he would ensure the deduction of one million votes from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s tally in the 2027 presidential election.
Marafa, who recently resigned from the All Progressives Congress (APC) after accusing the President of a “use-and-dump” leadership style, made the vow during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“I’m going to assure you something today. I’m going to deduct one million out of Mr. President’s votes that he got in 2023. Mark my words. I’m going to do it. I would work for it and by the special grace of God, I’m going to win that,” Marafa said.
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The former lawmaker, who represented Zamfara Central in the Senate between 2011 and 2019, dismissed those who describe him as a political lightweight, insisting that the 2027 elections would prove his relevance.
Marafa, who served as Zamfara State Coordinator of the Tinubu/Shettima campaign organisation during the 2023 elections, said widespread disenchantment in Zamfara politics was already aligning key politicians against the APC.
“Anybody that you can call substance in Zamfara State, we’re on one side. In 2023, Governor Dauda Lawal, who had never been in politics, was able to secure victory against four former governors, senators and members of the House of Representatives. That tells you the depth of people’s disenchantment,” he said.
According to him, Tinubu’s campaign in Zamfara succeeded in 2023 only because of the assurances that the APC’s reward system would be reformed.
He accused the President of failing to fulfil that promise.
“People were not happy with the tail end of Buhari’s government. The President promised that he was going to eradicate the concept of ‘monkey dey work, baboon dey chop,’ only for him to entrench it, institutionalize it and make it the state policy of the APC,” he added.
In the 2023 presidential election, Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes nationwide, representing 36.6 percent of valid ballots, to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi of the Labour Party.
In Zamfara, however, the APC faced setbacks at the state level, as the party lost the governorship election to the PDP’s Dauda Lawal despite fielding several influential political figures, including Marafa, in its presidential campaign structure.
