From Layi Olanrewaju, Ilorin

Concerned All Progressives Congress (APC) youth stakeholders in Kwara State, comprising of youth organisations of the party in the three senatorial districts of the state, have threatened not to allow the forthcoming party membership registration exercise to hold in the state over the alleged removal of the Chairman of the party’s Caretaker Committee, Bashir Bolarinwa.

Speaking with reporters in Ilorin on Thursday, the APC youth stakeholders, who described the purported removal as illegal and undemocratic, called on the national caretaker committee of the party, led by Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State, to rescind the decision in the interest of the party in the state.

The spokesman of the youths, Mallam Ahmed Ishowo, said that the recent political developments in the Kwara State APC, ‘sad as it is, is returning Kwara State to the bad old days of naked wielding of political power by few privileged to overrun the wishful will of the people.’

Mallam Ishowo, who was flanked by other youth leaders from the Kwara South and Kwara North senatorial districts, Mr Olawale Adegboye and Mallam Adamu Abdullahi, said that alleged removal of Bolarinwa was a move to return the state to ‘the dark days of political self-seeking ambitions.’

The APC youths said that the suspension and removal of Bolarinwa from office on Wednesday, January 13, was without any prior properly instituted allegation in accordance with the party’s constitution, adding that Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, who allegedly claimed he could not work with Bolarinwa, recently affirmed his chairmanship of the party.

‘It is now glaring to every Kwaran of good conscience irrespective of ethnicity, religious inclination, political affiliation and creed that “OUR LOCAL DEMOCRACY IS BACK IN GRAVE DANGER”!. It is sad that we are at the verge of deviation from our long walk to a politically freed Kwara and a highway leading to progress. WE ARE NOW ON A JOURNEY TO THE DIRECTION OF AN ABYSS OF ANARCHY!,’ Ishowo declared.

‘We wish to let the whole nation know that we find ourselves in a situation where the “soul of our collective struggle”, which was proudly christened as ” O TO GE” (Enough is Enough) is being sacrificed in the most Machiavellian manner on the altar of politics of selfish interest and desire for more power by a handful few individuals and their collaborators in the corridors of power.

‘Some individuals, who by providence and our collective sacrifice, occupy enviable positions today as governors of APC controlled states in Nigeria have chosen to constitute themselves as impostors, collaboratively violating the constitution of our party and exhibiting sheer disregard for known and acceptable norms and tenets of intraparty democracy, in a bid to foist one of their own upon Kwara State, a state of more than three million inhabitants and a party populated by people of substance who chose to take their destiny and that of Kwara State in their own hands. They resorted to crookedly effect the most vicious kind of political coup via replacing void of due process, the Caretaker leadership of Kwara State. This is anything but moral and an affront to the sensibilities of common APC members in our dear Kwara State.’

The youths appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari and the national caretaker committee of the party headed by Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State to address alleged injustice, ‘and save Kwara State from being thrown into an abyss of anarchy. A stitch in time saves nine.

‘Is it possible to suspend a man without his consent and consequently appoint and swear in another Caretaker Chairman to replace one who is yet to be issued with a letter of suspension or a letter terminating his appointment?,’ the spokesman asked.