Ex-senator blames Lai for Kwara APC crisis

The crisis in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is traceable to Lai Mohammed, minister of information, according to Suleiman Ajadi, a former senator.

Speaking with reporters in Ilorin, the state capital, on Friday, Ajadi alleged that the minister is using Bashir Omolaja Bolarinwa, a former APC chairman in the state, to destabilise Kwara,

Ajadi said the minister has perfected plans to either stop the party’s registration “through a phantom court case”.

“The person to be blamed is the Honorable Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Muhammed. He brought BoB to Kwara State to come and be the Chairman of the Caretaker Committee,” he said.

“He was imposed from Abuja, there was no election. Even before the election he was encouraging BOB to disrespect the then gubernatorial candidate to the point of not attending the rally at that time.

“Ask anybody, the former Chairman hardly attended rallies with the governorship candidate then. And after he won the election, they continued their antics of propagating their lies against the governor. How can a state chairman of the party be going and encouraging others to go to radio stations to disparage the governor of the state? They were openly discrediting the Governor under the guise of not carrying them along.

“How can you be disparaging somebody and you are accusing him of not carrying you along? Taking you along for what? Most of the people fighting this battle against him, he made their children SA this and that. He is doing projects in their communities. I don’t know the meaning of he is not taking them along. Nobody knows the meaning; maybe they just want to be sharing money. But if Alahji Lai Muhammed had called the chairman he brought to order all along it would not have gone this far.

“And it was because Alhaji Lai Mohammed is claiming to be the leader of the party in Kwara state. Take it that when we had no governor, honorable minister could be the party leader for that state. But when we now have a substantive governor how can you be claiming to be the party leader and trying to give orders, telling the governor where he should go and where he should not go?”

Neither the minister nor Segun Adeyemi, his media aide, responded to inquiries on the allegation