According to news report from Vanguard, candidates for the Chairmanship and Councillorship posts of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State, ahead of the September 2024 elections, have been selected through consensus, stated the state party Chairman, Prince Sunday Fagbemi.

Speaking with journalists at the state party secretariat in Ilorin on Tuesday regarding preparations for the upcoming council polls, Prince Fagbemi emphasised that candidates are central to election plans, adding, "We are ready with over 80 per cent of our candidates via consensus."

He said:”When we ask people to pay money, we are preparing the ground for the party.

So when we are talking of consensus, we are ready to go the whole hog to ensure that candidates emerge through Consensus before we accept to be making payments.”

On how well the consensus options went well with aspirants, he said: “You know in any human endeavour, there is no perfection in it. The people that are not happy we will talk to them. We have a mechanism for resolving issues.

“Already, we have a peace and reconciliation committee that is in place to overswitch any fragrance from this particular thing because everybody wants something that is good and people are attracted to us because of the good works that we have done knowing fully well that having tickets is just as good as being in that position.”

He added that “that is why you see other parties begging people to come and contest. We are trying to reduce the number of people that will contest, appealing to them that if they don’t make it this time, they will make it another time. And not only that, when we win this election, there will be other positions that will be open.

“We will have Supervisory Councillor and job employment in other places, so all hope is not lost for those people that do not win the election,” he said.

He also said that aspirants who didn’t make it in the consensus arrangement would be compensated with employment opportunities and other political patronages.

He said:'”There will be employment opportunities and even patronages.

Otherwise, when the people get to a place there will be projects that will be on. It is not a ghost that will do all these things, so the coast is clear for everybody.”

He also exuded confidence that the party’s candidates would win in a landslide manner because of the love that the electorates have for the party.

He said:”As a serious-minded party, the party that the people love, they’ve given us their mandate for two consecutive terms. So we are fully ready from the date the timetable was rolled that we should be preparing. We are eighty-five per cent ready. You don’t know what will come next on the KWASIEC, that is why we are reserving the 15 per cent.

He also said that defying all odds, “with what we have done and with what the people have seen, with the confidence they put in us, we are just looking on to victory.

“When the people have spoken, nobody can change it. So when the election is over, we are looking at winning all because they have lost all before even in the general election. So now, nothing has changed except we win with a better margin.