Date: 2014-09-27

Our attention has been drawn to a news item to the effect that the stakeholders in Kwara South PDP have endorsed Professor Oba Abdulraheem as candidate in the coming governorship election. We wish to dismiss the report as entirely false, misleading and therefore null and void. This is because at no point did stakeholders in the PDP meet to endorse any candidate. We are quick to point out that while Prof Oba's supporters are free to sell their principal, it is a mischief taken too far to dignify their individual interest by calling it an endorsement by Kwara South PDP Stakeholders. Indeed, none of the characters mentioned in the story is a potential delegate for the primary and this shows the emptiness of their claim.

It is our position that anybody who deems himself/herself competent, popular and credible can seek our party's nomination. We restate our commitment to free and fair primaries where our people from Kwara South would back only candidates with record of fairness, friendship and goodwill for them. We will only support a candidate we can be safe with, no matter where he hails from in our dear state. We will be guided by our history: informed history and not prejudice that is built on needless ethnic bias.

Every aspirant is therefore welcome to sell their aspirations to our people who would then make their choice known at the appropriate time. We wish to state that our people would not be intimidated by any empty endorsement made in bad faith.

They certainly won't back an aspiration which all of us fear may constitute existential threat to our people!

Signed:
Chief Bisi Oloruntoba
Former Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, a Kwara South PDP Chieftain
For Kwara South PDP Integrity Group.