The internal crisis rocking the Kwara state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has taken another dimension with the allegations and counter-allegations of how the 2019 campaign funds were spent. TOPE SUNDAY writes.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the Kwara state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is in serious internal crisis and the development has divided its members into two factions. Though the party may deny that it has not been factionalised in the state, it is the public domain that its members now bear allegiance to either the governor, Malam Abdulrahman AbdulRasaq or the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
Blueprint Weekend learnt that the party now has two chairmen who are also doing the bidding of both factional leaders. The governor’s camp has Alhaji Abdullahi Samari as its chairman, while the minister’s camp is led by a former House of Representatives’ member, Bashir Bolarinwa.
The crisis, the genesis
Less than two years after it dethroned the Saraki Dynasty, which ruled the state for almost 40 years, the Kwara state chapter of the APC is currently embroiled in an internal crisis that according to political pundits may serve as its albatross in 2023, if not properly handled.
It would be recalled that the state APC chairman, Bashir Bolarinwa, had accused the governor of abandoning the party after the electoral victory of the party last year, lamenting that every effort made to make the governor see reason on the wrong path he was treading had failed. This development has further polarised the party.
This reporter gathered that the war of supremacy is well-pronounced between Governor AbdulRazaq and a group led by Alhaji Mohammed and the Minister of State for Transport, Senator Gbemisola Saraki, while the ripples generated by the APC membership revalidation exercise in the state are yet to simmer as the two groups are said to be going for broke over who controls the party’s structure.
Gov’s revelations
For the first time, the governor on June 26, this year, opened up on the crisis rocking the state and attributed it to his refusal to fund a campaign structure that was formed without his prior knowledge or input as the governorship candidate.
Represented by his deputy, Mr. Kayode Alabi, at the launch of a book titled: Otoge in Ilorin, the governor alleged that said some cabals within the party who received millions of naira as donations for the Kwara struggle from far and wide did not deliver the huge money to him.
“I also need to set the record straight about the party crisis. It did not begin after the election or swearing-in. It is safe to say that those who claimed to own the party in the state at that time practically disowned me until after the President had won his election and the coast became clearer back home.
“Party officials got the instruction not to attend my campaign. A few of them can testify to this. I went around the whole of Kwara North without a party. However, they stylishly joined the campaign after the presidential election when it was clear Kwarans had decided in our favour.
“I am not aware of any decent democracy where a candidate would not be given the privilege of shaping the direction of his own campaign. It is even worse that my campaign was boycotted because I refused to be led by the nose.
“Some ministers, governors, party supporters and friends of Kwara who I later heard donated hundreds of millions of naira to support the Otoge struggle in Kwara, I want to say that I did not receive a kobo of that fund. But how that money was managed or stolen is a story for another day,” he said.
Lai kicks back
However, on July 3, Alhaji Mohammed described the governor as “one chance,” a coinage meant to describe a wrong choice of person or action. Speaking at the opening of the new party secretariat for the APC faction, he said: “It has gotten to the point where we have to speak out. We have been pushed to the wall, and we have no choice but to come out and expose their lies and pretensions.
He said, “It was shortly after the governor emerged as the party’s candidate for the election that it dawned on us that we had entered a ‘one chance.’ But despite all the warnings from concerned party leaders and others who had reservations about his choice, our reaction then was that no matter what, his choice was better than where we were coming from. But we were wrong.
“I single-handedly, by the grace of God, with the support of friends, politicians and associates raised all the money for all the elections we had in Kwara during that period, starting from the by-election that brought in honourable Raheem Olawoye (Ajuloopin) as rep member.
“Nobody gave the party a dime for logistics apart from what I gave. I distributed 500 motorcycles and 200 vehicles and many of the beneficiaries are seated here today. I challenge them to explain to Nigerians and all of you what happened to the balance of the N70 million that Ajuloopin refused to give us from the N150 million that I facilitated to prosecute the elections.”
Allegations galore
But after the governor and the minister’s altercations and allegations on the 2019 campaign funds, their followers and loyalists have hijacked the development to display their loyalty to their bosses.
Members of the Kwara state House of Assembly led the discourse when they hit back at the minister and debunked his claim that he bankrolled their elections in 2019.
“Lai Mohammed did not give any support in any form to members of the 9th legislature during the campaign and election; if he did, he should name who and what he gave out. Could the minister be mixing things up on account of his old age?! Apart from the governorship candidate (His Excellency, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq), the other support was the sum of N500, 000 each that we received from the national headquarters of our party, APC.”
But the financial secretary of the APC in the state, Mohammed Tajudeen, countered them, declaring that Alhaji Mohammed funded the by-election campaign expenses of Rep. AbdulRaheem Ajuloopin in 2018. Tajudeen was quoted to have said that Mohammed solely sourced for the campaign funds to prosecute the by-election and other elections in the state.
“All the money I am talking about was given by Alhaji Lai Mohammed, all the state Assembly members collected N500, 000 each from Mohammed and not the governor. They thanked him then, now they are saying another thing. I can say it everywhere, all the money was transferred from the Kwara APC account to all the members of the House of Assembly,” he said.
2023, the jitters
In his reaction, a lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Federal University of Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti state, Mr. Femi Fayomi, said with the allegations and counter-allegations over the 2019 campaign fund, the party is on a mission to political Golgotha ahead of the 2023 elections.
“It is no longer news that the APC led government in Kwara state since her assumption of office two years ago has been engrossed in intense intra party rivalries and frictions which culminated in the removal of Mr. Bolarinwa as the party chairman and the fractionalisation of the party a few days ago.
“With the allegations and counter-allegations from both sides of the factions, one loyal to the governor and the other group loyal to the information and culture minister, the party is on a mission to political Golgotha ahead of the 2023 elections.
“It also goes to say that the party has not been able to manage the “political gift” entrusted to it by the insensitivity of the Saraki’s political machinery to the yearnings of the electorates in the build-up to the 2019 elections. It will be a herculean task for a fragmented APC to face the hitherto political structure in the 2023 elections without suffering electoral humiliation.
“More so, the feelings in the state are that the APC government has not been exceptional in offering sound and purposive governance in the state. The president and other leaders in the party should as a matter of urgency interfere in the imbroglio to save the party from defeat in the 2023 elections,” he said.
