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Comrade John Adegboye is a spokesperson for the Concerned All Progressives Congress (APC) Youth Stakeholders in Kwara State. He speaks with BIOLA AZEEZ on current happenings in the party. Excerpts:
WHAT is really the grouse of your group with the APC-controlled state government?
Some people are basking in the euphoria of having administrative power in their hands. They have decided to subvert and oppress intra party democracy. We are all aware of how, in a Machavelian manner, never known to us in Nigeria, intra-party politics and constitution of a political party are being violated in a way we didn’t meet with our founding fathers. Most of us in the party, especially, in this group, our names have been given to security agencies for offences we don’t even know anything about and we’re billed to be arrested just because of party registration and revalidation exercise. We say it that among the four tendencies that make up the party, one is domineering others.
By Demola Akinyemi Ilorin
Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Caretaker Committee in Kwara State, Abdullahi Samari, has described as very embarrassing and shameful “the introduction of violence into the party’s stakeholders meeting on Wednesday by former Chairman, Bashir Omolaja Bolarinwa with the aide of his thugs through an authorized door, when he had been duly invited.”
However, Bolarinwa in a swift reaction denied the allegation, saying that the group of Governor Abdulrahman AbdulRasaq, which he alleged prepared the list, had already excluded some of his members from the list.
He also said that it was when one woman rushed at him at the entrance and held his clothes that the crisis erupted.
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Against calls for reconstitution of the seven-man committee on membership registration and revalidation exercise sent to Kwara state, the chairman of the APC caretaker committee in the state, Abdullahi Samari, has condemned the violent break in upon the venue of the party’s stakeholders meeting allegedly by some loyalists of former party chairman, Hon. Bashir Omolaja Bolarinwa.
This is just as a group of youth in the party, under the aegis of the Concerned Youth Stakeholders of the APC, has asked for reconstitution of the party’s membership registration and revalidation committee sent by the national leadership of the party for the exercise.
On one hand, are those categorised as Abuja-based politicians and on the other are the governor who has done and is doing everything possible to assert his authority as the overall leader of the party who should command the respect and obeisance of every member.
But as this seems a tall expectation, peace has been elusive in the party from day one, after the governor took over the mantle of leadership on that incredible mantra of ‘Otoge’ which upset the status quo.
Virtually all the aspirants who contested against the governor have deserted him and the battle for the soul of the party has been vociferous.
The Senator representing Kwara South in the National Assembly, Lola Ashiru, has called for truce over the unending crisis between the elders of All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Kwara State chapter of the party.