Date: 2021-02-11

All Progressives Congress (APC) caretaker executive committee members loyal to the suspended state chairman Hon Bashir Bolairnwa Wednesday said the ongoing membership registration and revalidation exercise in the state is a sham.

The group added that the exercise is being carried out in clear and brazen breaches of the registration guidelines across all units in the state.

Vice Chairman of the caretaker committee Chief Sunday Odebiyi told reporters in Ilorin, the state capital, adding that majority of the exco members was not carried along in the events leading to the exercise.

He said: "Assuming that without conceding that the chairman Hon Bolairnwa is suspended, are we all also suspended? Is the majority members of the executive committee here present also suspended? So why did the Senator Danboyi-led team sidestep all of us.

"If this is bad, what is happening on the field is worse. The guidelines of the registration are being severely raped across all the 1,872 units without exception."

Chief Odebiyi alleged that registration materials are being hoarded, saying in virtually all the units both registration forms and register of members are not provided.

He claimed that based on the non availability of materials greater majority of Hon Bolairnwa faction is yet to register. He continued that "we demand for a level playing field in the registration exercise; we demand an immediate deployment of the registration materials to all the units without exception. We demand that they be brought out from where they are presently being hoarded.

"We demand a complete stop to the use of exercise books to record the personal details of the registrants. "We demand a more inclusive approach to the exercise. If we, the state executive committee members are in the dark, if the LGA chairmen and their executives are in the dark, if the ward chairmen and their executives are in the dark, what then is the essence of the exercise?

"We urge our members to continue to be peaceful and law-abiding.

"As leaders of the party, we are alarmed by what is playing out in our party. We are disappointed too, and we are ashamed. We are alarmed that a minority elements in the party are holding the majority of members to ransom. "We are disappointed that the people that should put things right and straight are not only looking away, but are giving tacit support to the aberrations for pecuniary reasons."

He added that issues at stake transcend both Hon Bolairnwa and Governor AbdulRaman Abdulrazaq.

Chief Odebiyi said the issues border on the hopes and aspirations of thousands of Kwarans who "worked tirelessly to bring the APC in the state thus far but are now relegated and abused for no fault of theirs."