BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
W.B. Yeat’s poem, “The Second Coming”, seems to have found ample expression in the affairs of Kwara State’s chapter of the All Progressives Congress presently. The Irish poet had penned: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre. The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,”
These relevant lines are aptly applicable to the goings on in the party now.
Indeed, for Kwara APC, things have fallen so miserably apart, or so it seems, that stakeholders and sympathizers are asking if it is ordinary.
The party which rode to power on the back of a revolutionary slogan, O to gee, a Yoruba expression for “Enough is Enough”, is now riddled with in-fighting, so much so that nobody can hazard a guess about the fate that awaits it in 2023.
At the centre of it all, The Point learnt, are the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed and the state Governor, AbdulRazaq Abdulraham, the two topmost leaders of the party in the state.
“It is all about leadership tussle. That’s all I think is there to it. Who should have the final say on any issue affecting the party in Kwara. And I don’t think that should be an issue at all. By convention, the governor is the leader of the party in the state.
“The annoying thing is that this crisis is a huge distraction to the government and we don’t want any distraction, not at this time. How can members of the party, I mean our party, be the ones playing the roles of the opposition? Just to discredit another person’s work? And this is a man we all jointly laboured to install. It is not funny at all. I can tell you that PDP is not the opposition in Kwara, but it’s the APC. A group of people within APC in Kwara is the opposition, period,” a source told The Point at the weekend.
Supremacy tussle
Sometime in February, while the party’s membership registration and revalidation was on, a chieftain of the party, Senator Suleiman Ajadi, pointedly accused Lai Mohammed of being behind the crisis rocking the party. He had alleged that Mohammed wanted to be the godfather, who Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq must either submit to or be coerced into doing so.
He further alleged, during a press conference he held in Ilorin, that the minister was using a former APC chairman in the state “to destabilize Kwara with propaganda and anti-party activities.”
“The person to be blamed is the Honorable Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
“They were openly discrediting the governor under the guise of not carrying them along. How can you be disparaging somebody and you are accusing him of not carrying you along?” he had queried.
Last month, there were accusations and counter accusations and denials of how campaign funds were mismanaged and looted.
The governor at a book launch claimed funds for the party was mismanaged, while a former chairman of the party, Bashir Bolarinwa, claimed that the governor was economical with the truth.
The Governor had claimed during the launch of a book titled: “O to gee”, where he was represented by his deputy, Kayode Alabi, that campaign funds in the 2019 gubernatorial election were mismanaged.
“And, as for ministers, governors, party supporters and friends of Kwara, who I later heard, donated hundreds of millions of naira to support the O to gee 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.” The governor had declared.
Bolarinwa also disputed the claim by Governor Abdulrazaq that he was not consulted before the Campaign Team was constituted and that he was practically abandoned by the party during the campaigns.
“The annoying thing is that this crisis is a huge distraction to the government and we don’t want any distraction, not at this time. How can members of the party, I mean our party, be the ones playing the roles of the opposition?”
The former party boss had countered: “He was contacted and after approving the campaign structure headed by Chief Sunday Oyebiyi, Chairman of APC in Kwara North Senatorial zone, he turned his back and abandoned the party. It was the Minister, Lai Mohammed, who funded the campaigns of the party for the 2019 elections.”
But members of the state House of Assembly rose stoutly against the narrative. They described the claim as unfounded.
The lawmakers said the only individual who could claim to have offered financial assistance to them during the campaign was Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, who was the APC governorship candidate at the time being referenced.
“Senator Suleiman Ajadi, pointedly accused Lai Mohammed of being behind the crisis rocking the party. He had alleged that Mohammed wanted to be the godfather, who Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq must either submit to or be coerced into doing so”
Their position was made known through a press conference addressed by the Speaker of the House, Hon Yakubu Danladi-Salihu which was read on his behalf by the Deputy Speaker of the House, Hon Raphael Adetiba, a member representing Oke-Ero Constituency, at the NUJ Press Centre, Ilorin.
“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?
“For God knows the reason, Lai Mohammed did not participate in any of our campaigns and did not also contribute financially to it. It was the then Governorship candidate of our party, the APC, who supported our campaigns all through,” the lawmakers asserted.
The lawmakers advised the minister not to drag them into any fuss he may be having with the Governor and leader of the party in the state, Governor AbdulRazaq.
Sadly, even the revolutionary slogan, O to gee was not spared. It was embroiled in controversy bordering on originality and who should take credit for its creation.
The Governor spared no efforts in telling the story of how it came about. “Since this book is about history, I feel it is important to set the record straight on a few things. First, the O to gee is the struggle of our people and it did not necessarily start in 2019.
“Every Kwaran of good conscience owned and worked for that struggle in various ways. We were only positioned by providence to lead the final lap of the breaking of the jinx that dated back many decades.
“However, permit me to assert here that contrary to some claims out there, the battle cry O to gee and its adoption were a product of a statewide field research that I commissioned shortly after the primaries in October 2018.”
Acerbic rhetoric
Of late, the rhetoric coming out of the State of Harmony has been anything but harmonious. It has rather been an acerbic and caustic rhetoric. The minister reportedly described the coming to power of the party in 2019 in the state as a “one chance” experience.
The language is usually reserved for describing unpleasant, regrettable and unfortunate experience. It is the falling into the hands of armed robbery gangs, who lure innocent passengers into their vehicle only to rob them of their valuables.
Speaking at the unveiling of a factional secretariat about 10 days ago, Mohammed lamented that the APC had been warned about supporting Governor Abdulrazaq, but that they failed to listen.
“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.
“It was immediately after the governor emerged as the party’s candidate for the election that it dawned on us all that we had entered one chance,” Mohammed allegedly claimed.
Last week, however, the party’s Caretaker Committee Chairman in the state, Abdullahi Abubakar, told newsmen in Abuja that Lai Mohammed could be sanctioned in matter of days for his public outbursts against Governor AbdulRazaq. He said the party would decide the type of sanction to apply after doing due diligence.
“My fear is that APC Kwara is underestimating the strength of the opposition. They are well entrenched. PDP will dislodge APC without much ado except the gladiators are willing to bury the hatchet, sink their differences and work together “
The party’s membership registration and revalidation exercise also ran into stormy waters in Kwara. The exercise which was trailed by allegations and counter allegations of confiscating and hoarding the materials eventually led the Membership Registration Appeals Committee and the Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee of the party, last week, to list Kwara as one of the four states alongside Rivers, Imo and Ogun, where the exercise was inconclusive and to therefore continue for two weeks.
Mercifully, the exercise was not cancelled as demanded for by the minister back in February.
As at the time of writing this report, efforts to get the camps of Governor AbdulRazaq and the Minister to comment on the feud by The Point yielded no fruit as both camps did not respond to inquiries.
However, a source expressed apprehension that the infighting may rob the party of the chance to continue in government beyond 2023.
“My fear is that APC Kwara is underestimating the strength of the opposition. They are well entrenched. The PDP will dislodge the APC without much ado except the gladiators are willing to bury all hatchets, sink their differences and work together. If they continue to undermine each other, I am sorry, O to gee will not work again,” the source said.
