Lai Muhammed, Gov AbdulRahaman Tear Kwara APC Apart

Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazak have split Kwara All Progressives Congress down the middle, with two factions now emerging in the party’s executive committee.

A faction loyal to the governor consist of some aggrieved members led by the state Deputy Chairman of the party, Alhaji Abdullahi Samari.

The group accused the state Chairman, Alhaji Bashir Bolarinwa, of financial recklessness.

Samari, at a press conference in Ilorin, accused Bolarinwa of running the party like a sole administrator alleging that the chairman is involved in shady deals contrary to the fundamental principles upon which the party was built.

He explained that the party has been enmeshed in some sort of internal schism occasioned by the dissatisfaction expressed by a bloc of the State Executive Committee against the leadership of the chairman.

“Unfortunately, rather than address the sundry issues that bother on the lack of accountability, transparency, equity, fairness, sacrosanctity of the provisions of the Party’s Constitution and our demand for same.

“A cabal within the Party Executive and the State Chairman are deliberately diverting attention from the real issues and instead blaming some imaginary forces for the rising opposition against their autocratic leadership,” Samari alleged.

The Vice Chairman of Kwara North of the party, Mr Sunday Oyebiyi, told newsmen that the contributions of the minister during the 2019 general elections were immeasurable and dismissed the claims of Samari.

Oyebiyi said their (Samari’s group) reference to a cabal within the party led by the minister was petty, childish and laughable.

“They are afraid of their own shadows and in going down, they are willing to pull anyone strand with them. The APC will outlive many of them.

“If the memories of these aggrieved people is short, we cannot be accused of same. The struggle to win election was fierce and challenging.

“During this period of tribulations, it was only Alhaji Lai Mohammed that we saw, he sponsored sensitisation programmes, provided logistics and other such supports requested from him.

“He stood by us and together we navigated the rough roads to victory. This is not news to our traducers, they only chose the path of mischief,” Oyebiyi said.