From Adedeji Joseph, Ilorin.
The Abuja venue of the national convention of All Progressives Congress (APC) may become a boxing ring for factional members of the party laying claim to be authentic delegates from Kwara State.
One of the factions said to be led by Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Information and Culture Minister and loyal to President Mohammadu Buhari in a press statement asked the police to arrest at the venue, any delegate not belonging to their faction.
Chairman of the faction, Hon. Bashir Bolarinwa, who signed the statement said security agents should arrest any delegate belonging to the Senate President Bukoka Saraki faction found within the vicinity of the convention.
Bolarinwa said the presence of delegates from Saraki’s faction would be subjudice because he had already filed a suit against them in court asking that they must be made to stay not less than 100 meters away.
He commended President Buhari for putting in place a reconciliation committee led by Ashiwaju Ahmed Tinubu which “has addressed all issues bordering on disagreement and sufficient to cement the party”.
The factional chairman accused the outgoing Central Working Committee of the party at the national level of supplanting the will of party members saying; “the outgoing executive of party at the national level brought us to this sorry state by programming our congresses to fail.
“Why would you drop party nomination forms with the people that are contesting same elections? Where is the neutrality that can make the outcome of that congress credible and acceptable?”.
“We need to remind the convention committee that is working day and night, to put together an acceptable and credible national convention that there is a subsisting suit challenging the legality of Ishola Balogun Fulani (Saraki’s faction) executive before Justice Sulieman Akanbi of the Kwara State High Court, Ilorin”.
Meanwhile, the Senate President faction in its own reaction raised an alarm that “two different groups, led by some aggrieved members of the party were compiling fake list of delegates ahead of the Saturday national convention of the party in Abuja.
A statement signed by Alhaji Sulyman Buhari said it had it on good authority that “the decision to compile a fake list of delegates for the convention was reached at a meeting held on Tuesday in the house of a chieftain of the party in GRA, Ilorin, the state capital.
He also alleged that another faction of Kwara APC he said was based in Abuja where a meeting was purportedly held to fuse their own list with that of Ilorin describing the two factions as unpopular.
The statement reads in part:”To show how unpopular they all are, the two groups have been fishing for people on the streets of Ilorin to use as delegates and begging them to follow them to Abuja with a promise that they would be handsomely paid on their returns”.