The number of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairmanship aspirants for the forthcoming local government elections in Kwara State have reduced drastically due to recent directives to political officeholders eyeing the ticket to resign their appointments, investigations by Daily Trust have shown.

Over 100 aspirants, among them current political officeholders, from the ruling PDP were eyeing the ticket for the 16 local government councils in the October 26 LG elections in the state.

However, the state PDP leader and former Governor Bukola Saraki recently directed all political office holders who have their eyes in becoming chairmen of their respective councils to relinquish their positions.

This, according to party insiders, was a shocker to many of them who eventually dropped their chairmanship ambition to avoid committing "political suicide" if eventually they didn't get the ticket.

Speaking with our correspondent yesterday, the state PDP Director of Publicity, Alhaji Mas'ud Adebimpe restated the directive which he said was the position of the party, adding that it is one of the prerequisites for any aspirant holding a political office to relinquish the position to contest.

Meanwhile, the party has directed its local government chapters to screen aspirants at the ward level preparatory to the party's primaries taking place in August 22 and August 23 for councillorship and chairmanship aspirants respectively.

"I want to say that with the release of guidelines by the State Independent Electoral Commission (KWSIEC), we are fully ready for the elections", he said.