We don’t have any problem with you, Kwara APC leaders tell governor

Some leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara say the crisis rocking the party in the state has nothing to do with AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, the governor.

They made this known when the state executive council members held a COVID-19 protocol-compliant parley with at least 21 members of the APC state executive council.

The meeting was boycotted by Bolarinwa Omolaja, the chairman, and those who have been having a running battle with some other leading members of the state executive council.

At the parley Mamman Jibril, secretary to the state government who represented the governor, reassured the party leadership of his support as well as his commitment to the overall good of the state.

Abdullahi Samari, deputy chairman of APC in the state, said the rumbling within the party centres around failure of a segment of the party executive to render accounts or relate with other members of the executive as equal stakeholders.

“I want to say clearly that we in the party do not have any problem with the government or the Governor. And let no one deceive the public that this is about the government against the party or the party against the Governor. No. The problem is between us in the state executive council. It is not with the Governor or his government. We want transparency and accountability within the party. That is all,” Samari said.

“As far as we are concerned, we couldn’t have asked for a better government because the Governor has made a huge difference in every part of the state. In my local government (Baruten), no less than six different projects have been executed. The last one year has been so far so good. What the Governor has done so far within one year has been stellar. I have heard the same stories from other local government areas. So, the Governor has represented us well. He has been relating with us greatly. We were always consulted and called to make inputs in many of the things the government is doing, so we only need to support him.”

Samari said the only link the governor may have with the internal crisis was “him standing by us to call for accountability and transparency and that was after listening to all the sides from within the APC state executive council.”

He commended the governor for yet again meeting with the party executives and called for more of such interface.

The parley agreed on the need for government officials and party leaders to interact more on the challenges facing the party in the state, including the modality for individual contributions to fund party activities.