Fresh information from the camp of the Kwara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) reveals that plans are underway to bring back some of the party’s loyalists who defected to become governorship candidates of other parties in the state.
Naija News gathered that the Kwara State APC chairman Sunday Fagbemi and the Director-General of the campaign council for the governor Abdulrahaman Abdulrazaq’s second term ambition, Yahaya Seriki, revealed that efforts were ongoing to bring back former APC loyalists who are now governorship candidates of SDP, YPP and NNPP, for the 2023 gubernatorial election in the State.
In a statement credited to Seriki, people of the state should not be surprised to wake up to see that the APC is working with all the defective party member members who are now in the opposition because the more they look, the less they see over the matter.
However, the APC’s state chairman submitted that “APC shall win the gubernatorial election and other elections by a wide margin. The minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed is one of our leaders and he is still part of us. He has never said that he’s no longer part of us. He will participate in the 2023 general elections with us.
“The closer you look, the less you know as it concerns APC in Kwara. Never mind, by the time elections come you will see that we are going to win by a wider margin than what happened in 2019. There’s no cause for alarm.”
Also the campaign council Director-General, as well, noted that the mass departure of these governorship and senatorial candidates of the YPP, SDP, NNPP and ADC from the APC will not affect the chances of the re-election bid of the incumbent governor, Abdulrahaman Abdulrazaq next year at the polls.
According to him, “The APC campaign council is working hard to bring back APC stalwarts who have emerged as gubernatorial candidates of YPP, NNPP, and SDP to APC which is their family.
“If you could recall, I was the Director-General of the APC campaign council in the Kwara Central senatorial district in the 2018/2019 general elections. Many of these people that decamped from APC did not participate in the election campaign then.
“You see, all these people in the YPP, SDP, and others were part of one big family and are related one way or the other. In 2019, I approached about 13 governorship aspirants then on the need to present one person among all of us as the party’s governorship candidate. The major reason they are not in APC today is because of their personal interest or expectations which according to them might not have been met.
“My own interest is to see a better Kwara State. If they believed in the growth of the State, they would not have left the party. Kwara is bigger than anybody. Leaving the party, to me, is out of personal interest and not that of the State.
“To answer your question, their departure from the party would not affect the chances of the governor in his bid for re-election. They also know they are going nowhere leaving the party. They were probably looking for ways to see us come and meet with them, which we have already started.
“By the special grace of God, the governorship candidates of the YPP, SDP, and even PDP, we are together. Don’t be surprised to hear and see tomorrow the PDP governorship candidate, Alhaji Shuaib Yaman Abdullahi, saying that because of Ambassador Yahaya Seriki, he is supporting Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq’s reelection bid come 2023.”
Naija News however learnt that some opposition parties who spoke with the Daily Post described the APC’s claim as not making sense.
The Kwara State governorship candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Professor Oba Shuaib Abdulraheem, told Daily Post that the APC’s claim is “arrant nonsense,” and that they are scared because of the fear of the unknown.
He said, “There is no plan whatsoever to merge with anybody or party, but we are ready to accommodate whoever is ready to come and join us at our party.”
On its own part, the Young Progressives Party (YPP), in the State denied any negotiation of any sort, while describing the APC’s claim as “wishful thinking.”
The Publicity Secretary of the YPP in the state, Oyewole Oladele, in a statement in Ilorin at the weekend, denied knowledge of any plans to woo the YPP governorship candidate, Waziri Yahaya Gobir, to support Abdulrazaq’s second-term ambition.
Oladele explained “Is false in its entirety”, explaining that contrary to Yahaya Seriki’s dream, “very soon, there will be a mass exodus of people from APC to YPP.
“At a point, Ambassador Abdulfatai Yahaya Seriki, himself was in talks to join the YPP and held several meetings with the national Chairman after his humiliation at the APC primary, but unfortunately, he did not dare stand by his principles.
“it is true that the gubernatorial candidate of the party, Yakubu Gobir, was a strong pillar of the ruling APC in the State and a frontline ‘Otoge’ crusader, but he made it clear that he did not want to be associated with failure, hence, he left the APC to start the YPP ballot revolution.
“History will judge this administration well. We urge him to search for his soul and be on the right side of history, we must begin to re-write the wrongs of the last three and a half years by sacking mediocrity today.”
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