THE reality of current Kwara State politics is that there has been a fusion "on paper" between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state. 

What is yet to materialise is the real fusion, as both the foundation members of the APC and the New-PDP entrants lay claim to the part and its structure and therefore believe that they should take the larger portion of the spoils of the union.

A naughty question on the lips of the major stakeholders in the state's politics is whether there was a formal agreement on "assets sharing," signed, sealed and delivered before the coming together of the two parties?

For instance, can Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Acting National Publicity Secretary of the APC, an indigene of Oro in Irepodun local council, work with Senator Bukola Saraki, the leader of the PDP in the state before the union? 

Besides, how will Dele Belgore (SAN), who was a favourite for the governorship ticket on the platform of the APC, get his ambition realised? 

Unconfirmed report says Belgore, Ilorin-born, is being wooed by the remnants of the PDP to be the party's governorship candidate in the 2015 elections. But his media aide, Rafiu Ajakaye, has refuted "the baseless rumour."

One incontrovertible fact in the state's politics is the strength and the influence that Senator Saraki wields. 

Born into a political family with an election-winning structure spanning over three decades, Saraki, representing Kwara Central, remains the only man in the political history of the state to serve as the governor for two consecutive terms. 

It thus implies that he remains the pivotal figure in the union, and his support for the arrangement means a victory for it and vice versa.

An aide of Mohammed told The Guardian that his boss was concerned with how the union could wrest power from the PDP at the national level rather than, "eyeing any post at the state or local level."   

If Mohammed is interested in the governorship, what becomes the fate of incumbent Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed in 2015? None of Ahmed's aides was willing to talk "on the sensitive" issue for now.

But a source said: "You people seem not to know the personality in Governor Ahmed. He is a firm believer in destinies and will always tell us to leave the future for God, the only one who enthrones and dethrones." 

While Lai Mohammed may be apathetic to the happenings at the state level, some members of the APC before the union are not pleased with the situation that could lead them to political extinction. 

They said they were ready to explore all constitutional means against any step that could prevent them from assuming leadership mantle within the party.

They alleged exclusion by the APC national leaders from major agreements that led to the fusion, boasting of having the capability to lead the party in the state, rather than succumbing to "imposition" of former leaders of the PDP on them.  

Addressing a press conference at the weekend in Ilorin, Revd. Bunmi Olusona, leading other APC members, countered an earlier press
media briefing by the former chairman of the PDP in the state, Alhaji Ishola Balogun-Fulani, who was quoted to have said there was no APC structure in the state and called on old APC members willing to work with them to feel free to do so.

But Olusona said: "We are shocked to read in the papers the comments attributed to the chairman of Kwara PDP — we think it is only fair to address him now as former chairman since they have formally ditched the PDP — that the APC to which they have purportedly defected has no structure in Kwara State and that anyone who wants to be part of the party (APC) should and must come to them."

Olusona said though it was a known fact that Balogun-Fulani was speaking his master's voice, all the same, the new PDP that he represented had become a pariah party with no political value again. 

According to him, the "Saraki political dynasty" that dominated
the state for several years was ever backed by the ‘federal might' which they have now fought.

"Indeed, we think such comment from Mr. Fulani and his backers is immoral and very unbecoming," Olusona said. 

"It speaks very poorly of a stranger being offered a shelter to turn around and then tell the person sheltering him that the house actually belongs to him, the stranger, and that but for him, the house couldn't have existed in the first place. That is poor manners."

Olusona also complained that: "Mr. Fulani and his people are up to some mischief — all targeted at forcefully and fraudulently arrogating to themselves what do not belong to them. 

"It is too soon and sudden to get so desperate, even though we are conscious of these people's antecedence.

May we therefore warn them that they are at liberty to seek shelter elsewhere if their ego and selfishness  - as manifest in such crude comments just a day after they quit their former party — would not let them honour and respect those who are offering them shelter." 

Besides, he warned the APC national body to tread softly in bringing the former PDP members into the fold, stressing that admitting them into the APC, it must take into cognizance the terms of the old members or else, the new entrants would bring their ‘bad luck' to infest the APC.
However, members of the erstwhile new PDP in Kwara State have hailed the merger with the APC as a welcome development that would deepen the developmental process in the state.

But realising the gravity of the statement credited to Fulani, the secretary of the state's PDP before the defection, Yemi Afolayan, noted that the merger of the two parties would ensure an all-inclusive politics in the state, consolidate current transformation and deliver more dividends of democracy.  

Afolayan stressed that the merger of the two parties was a manifestation of like-minds coming together for the good of all, without any biases whatsoever.

For him, APC remains a credible option to the PDP, as it allegedly houses like-minded progressives in the state. 

He emphasised that at no time did the party aver that APC had no formidable structure in Kwara State, saying that the party former chairman "was probably quoted out of context."

Afolayan advised all Kwarans to see the merger as a clarion call on all to be state-builders and transit Kwara into a model in Nigeria.