By Ayo Kehinde
Few days after Governor Abdulfatai Ahmed of Kwara state disclosed his intention to quit the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and all members of the National Assembly from the state, except the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, defected from the APC, the party has begun moves to oust Saraki’s loyalist in the state.
Led by Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party yesterday urged all Saraki’s men in the various agencies of the Federal Government to resign from office or be face the humiliation of being sacked.
Speaking at a press conference at his Oro country home shortly after a stakeholders meeting held to deliberate on the next move to reposition the party in the state following additional mass defection of members of the state lawmakers, 16 local government chairman, 193 councillors, Mohammed also called for the dissolution of the Kwara State executive of the party led by Alhaji Ishola Balogun Fulani.
The Minister said: “a meeting of stakeholders in Kwara State, held at Oro, on Sunday, 29 July 2018, resolved as follows:
1). That the Balogun Fulani-led Kwara APC executive committee be immediately dissolved and a fresh congress that will include all Kwara APC members and those who are just coming into the party be held at the various levels to constitute a new executive.
2). That all those who got appointments by deceit, hiding under the facade of being party men and women, should immediately resign such appointments or be fired.
3). That the recent gale of defections has now put the APC in a position of true majority in the National Assembly, as those who remain are the ones who are truly committed to the ideals of our great Party
4). That all members and supporters of our great party restate their unflinching support for President Muhammadu Buhari and assure him of a harvest of votes from Kwara State in the 2019 General Elections.
5) That all members should remain calm because there is no cause for alarm
Reacting to the call by Mohammed, state Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Sulyman Buhari, described the move as an exercise in futility.
He said; “The Ishola Balogun-Fulani led State Executive Committee of the APC is a product of law and due process. “It was an executive duly inaugurated by the NEC of the APC as authentic and legitimate. It’s not a jankara executive that Lai Mohammed and his other irrelevant Abuja-based colleagues wanted unsuccessfully to foist on the party during the last congress.
“Alhaji Lai Mohammed lacks the locus to call for the dissolution of the lawfully elected members of the State Executive Committee of the APC in Kwara. He is neither a member of the State Executive Committee nor a member of the APC National Executive Committee. “Worse, he’s not recognised as a leader of the party even in his Oro ancestral home, how much more across Kwara State. A man that did not attend the last congresses of the APC nor voted during the process does not have the standing to call for the dissolution of the executives that lawfully emerged from that process.
“The tragedy of a character like Lai Mohammed is that they forgot that we are in a democracy where the rule of law reigns supreme. No matter how much they try, the only lawfully-recognised executives of the APC in Kwara State at the moment is the Balogun Fulani-led executives. No amount of name-calling and blackmail can change that.”
