All Progressives Congress (APC) youths, ward, and local government chairmen in Kwara state have lamented that the ongoing crisis in the party portends grave danger for the fortune of the party in 2023 and subsequent elections in the state.
The stakeholders added that the war of attrition rocking the party is also capable of leading to mass defection of members to other parties in the state.
They therefore urged the leadership of APC in the state and Abuja to urgently intervene and salvage the situation.
Representatives of the ward, local government chairmen and youths Abdulrasheed Abdulrauf; Muyideen Shittu and Yinka Raji made the pleas in Ilorin, the state capital at a prayer session for the party ahead of 2023.
The party also used the occasion to pray for President Muhammadu Buhari in choosing the right and credible person as his successor in 2023.
Speaking on behalf of the ward chairmen, Abdulrauf said that “ I am delighted to present to you our elders and critical stakeholders our position, after carefully studying the situations in our party. We observe that since our party won the 2019 general elections in the state, there has been no peace in the party, following the desire of Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq to divide the party, which he successfully achieved by forming and funding a group called ‘AA”.
“This we believe was not in the best interest of the party and not in line with the party’s constitution.
“We have lodged complaints several times with our various Local gvernment party Chairmen, our senatorial chairmen as well as taking the complaints to the state chairman of the party against this illegality by the governor who is supposed to be the leader of the party.
“Despite our complaints, nothing has changed in the last 3 years.
Therefore, we, the entire ward chairmen of the party in the state have met and resolved to call on the state chairman and our leaders to note that our teeming members and supporters at the grassroots are becoming restless, more so when election year is fast approaching.
“In conclusion, the house is falling and we hereby appeal to our Local Government and state leadership to take urgent measures to retain our members at the grassroots, otherwise, the horse will bolt out of the stable.”
Corroborating the above, Mr. Shittu said that all the 16 local government chairmen “hereby acknowledge that the complaints lodged by the ward chairmen were not limited to their level alone, we Chairmen also suffer the same fate at our different local levels and we also registered same complaints with the state chairman without results so far.’’