Old Members Cry Foul as Saraki Takes Over APC In Kwara
The leadership of the All Progressives Party (APC) has handed over the party’s structures in Kwara State to the immediate past governor of the state, Senator Bukola Saraki, for effective and efficient election victories.
NigerianEcho gathered that state governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, had made the hand-over as a part of the request when APC leaders went to Ilorin to woo him and members of the Baraje faction of the PDP.
The Governor reportedly pointed out that the Saraki Team has a winning political machinery in place which in the past four decades had dictated the political tune of the state and that Saraki is the state’s political leader.
Meanwhile, a twist was introduced in Ilorin yesterday, when the interim factional state chairman of APC, Mr. Bunmi Olusona, who confirmed the development, said the party had not seen the letter of memorandum of understanding signed with Saraki on the taken over of the party structures in the state.
The group, which is mainly members of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) said to be loyal to the former governorship candidate of the party during 2011 governorship poll in the state, Mr. Mohammed Dele Belgore (SAN), said “Although we are yet to confirm or be fully briefed by the national headquarters of our party that Saraki had been given a lifeline by handing over the APC structures in the state to him, but to this effect we have already written an official letter to the national headquarters of our party detailing our position on the issue.”
Olusona however, described as frustrating the confirmation of the development by the APC’s interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
He quoted Mohammed as saying that the party’s four-man fact finding delegation that “already the party structure which we laboured hard to build had been ceded to Saraki and his group and that there is nothing anybody could do except what Saraki wishes for our people.
“He added that any aggrieved member has a choice of either leaving the party or accept the arrangement.”
Though Olusona stated that his group was not against the defection of the Saraki and his group into APC, he said: “What we are against is our party’s leadership collective resolve to cede the party machinery to the hands of Saraki.”
“It has become pertinent for us here to state that while we welcome Saraki and his members into the party, he should not get any privilege in his entry into the party,” he added.
Olusona said: “It was in an effort to ensure the advancement of the party in the state that an eight-man interim executive committee was appointed last weekend to oversee its affairs.
