The Kwara state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected the purported removal of the state party Chairman, Hon. Bashir Bolarinwa by the national Caretaker Committee of the party chaired by Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni.
To this end, the aggrieved members of the party in the state loyal to the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, and Minister of State for Transport, Gbemisola Saraki, appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to save the party from the imminent destruction and deliberate journey to political perdition.
Addressing journalists Wednesday in Abuja after meeting with the National Secretary of the party, Sen. John Akpanudoedehe, Mr. Iyiola Oyedepo, said the decision of the committee worth nothing more than the value of the paper.
He stated: "We have resolved to reject the verdict of the National Caretaker Committee on the purported removal of Hon. Bashir Omolaja Bolarinwa. It is worth nothing more than the value of the paper on which the letter given to Hon Sanmari Abdulahi is written. It certainly shall not work in Kwara State no matter who is behind it.
"Though when we told the Secretary that the decision could sink the party in the state, he said they really do not care. And he repeated during the conversation more than five times that he was acting under the instructions of the Chairman, Mai Mala Buni.
"We shall prove to those that aborted the peoples’ revolution foisting on our party the present situation since 2018 that Kwara is not an appendage of any outside power conspiracy. They continue to compromise our noble cause with these unacceptable decisions and we shall henceforth prove to those that are not popular at home but rather rely on political manipulations from outside that, the game is up," Oyedepo added.
He said members of the Kwara APC heard it as a rumour until they came face to face with the Secretary of the National Caretaker Committee Akpanudoedehe on the 12th day of January 2021, when he told them that the caretaker committee had dethroned Kwara state Chairman of the party on the 11th of January 2021, by giving a letter of appointment to his Deputy, Hon. Samari Abdullahi.
Oyedepo said the national Secretary of the party informed them that the Chairman was removed on the complaint of the Governor of Kwara State, Abdulrahaman AbdulRazaq, as he claimed that he could not work with the former.
He alleged that the complaint was sustained and made a subject of removal as a result of a connivance between AbdulRazaq and his Niger State counterpart and friend, Sanni Bello.
Oyedepo noted that the content of the complaints was not made available, neither to the critical stakeholders of the party in Kwara nor to the Chairman.
He said they found it difficult to believe that the leadership of a national political party like the APC would flagrantly abuse its constitution by the purported removal of Bolarinwa.
Oyedepo pointed out that it was not written anywhere in the Constitution of APC that a zone of the party like the North Central Zone, can recommend to the National Secretariat for the removal of any officer of the party in any ward, Local Government and the State.
