The crisis has gotten to its peak with the recent concluded APC membership revalidation and registration exercise in the state that was flawed with deliberate policies and grand orchestration to deregister and disenfranchise selected members of the party.
The M&M Event Centre in Ilorin, Kwara State has perhaps never held such a large assemblage of party faithfuls who thronged the venue of the mid-morning press briefing. They came from all corners of the state’s 16 local government as depicted on their labelled stands.
They were the aggrieved members of the All Progressives Party in the state who came to renounce their membership of the party and team up to form an association it called the Third force.
The large gathering included a senatorial chairman, ward chairmen, local government chairmen, women leaders, youth leaders, as well as APC party stalwarts representing local government areas, WHO, among others, accused the state governor and his loyalists in the party of alleged disenfranchisement in the recent membership registration and revalidation exercise.
Their grouse against the party were multitude. Speaking on behalf of the group, the state senatorial chairman for Kwara Central, Mallam Abdulfatai Abdulrahman, said, “the integrity of APC in kwara state has been jeopardized. The crisis ridden party cannot guarantee the hopes and aspirations of kwarans.
“It is impossible to achieve the developmental goals we are aiming for Kwarans amid chaotic situation we found ourselves in Kwara APC,” adding that the new party will be unveiled in due course as soon as possible
“As you are all aware, Kwara APC has been enmeshed in one crisis or the other almost immediately after the party’s primary, stretching into the campaign period and lingering up to date.
“The crisis has gotten to its peak with the recent concluded APC membership revalidation and registration exercise in the state that was flawed with deliberate policies and grand orchestration to deregister and disenfranchise selected members of the party.
“The success of a political party is anchored on its popularity, intra party membership cohesion, integrity and sincere commitment to the service of the masses. All these are glaringly diminishing in Kwara APC as it is now.
To show their anger, people tore their APC membership cards and burnt the party symbol of brooms, observing that the plot to allegedly marginalize them was all about 2023 political permutations.
“A grand design that denied majority of party members the opportunity to register and revalidate their membership across the state is a 2023 permutation agenda. We can never cross our fingers and watch the game from the sideline.
“The deliberate inaction to address the lingering crisis in Kwara APC has become obvious to all discerning minds that the agenda to deregister and refusal to revalidate thousands of members across the state was a grand plot that has the backing of the National Caretaker Committee of the party.
“From the above highlighted points, we, representing the hundreds of thousands disenfranchised card-carrying members of the All Progressives Congress including state exco, local government party chairmen, local government women leaders, youth leaders, ward chairmen as well as APC party stalwarts across the sixteen local government areas in the state hereby denounce APC and form a KWARA THIRD FORCE of like minds across party lines.
“WE, therefore, call on all well-meaning Kwarans to shun violence, unnecessary agitation and desperation to belong to a party that has abandoned the majority of its members.
“Instead, WE call on all aggrieved members of APC to pick up the courage to say NO to tyranny and join us to reshape the political future of Kwara State,” he said.
The group said it would unveil a new party in due course, calling on all political gladiators and well-meaning Kwarans to team up and register with the party that will take us to our desired destination.
The people, who tore their APC membership cards and burnt the party symbol of brooms, said that the plot to marginalize them was all about 2023 political permutations.
A mild drama was however added to the group’s declaration, when shortly before the event kick off, another group, Kwara Political Front, KPF raised the alarm over the intention of the Third Force.
It said “the phantom defection to an association, Third Force, at a declaration in Ilorin, the state capital, is to give a false disaffection within the APC”
KPF condemned what it described as “allegations, accusations and falsehoods from some internally displaced politicians desperate to convince the former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, that he remains a force in the state political circle”
KPF President, Alhaji Abdullahi Mohammad, in a statement, tackled the so called Third Force for planning to stage a ‘fake’ defection ceremony of 20,000 members in coming days.
He claimed the KPF was in possession of a postdated press statement against the backdrop of the purported defection with the false claims of 20,000 APC members burning their membership cards during the supposed charade.
Mohammad said the Third Force was taking advantage of the minor internecine controversy in their former party to stage the fake defection and create the erroneous impression that the APC was dead in Kwara State.
“We as dedicated Political Front members are not shocked by the wrangling in the camp of displaced politicians, especially with the retrieval of their ‘secretariat’, which has further divided their camp.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand. We warn the group to desist from attributing their serial woes to APC and shun the underhand tactics of planning false defection as a canon folder for their fake popularity,” the KPF stated.
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