Some All Progressives Congress party (APC) leaders in Kwara State have called for a level ground for the registration of members of the party and election of the officials that will pilot the affairs of the party in the state.

The leaders, who spoke under the aegis of Kwara APC Chieftains, said this arrangement will enable party members to feel sense of belonging and prevent the former leader of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, Bukola Saraki, who has just defected to the APC from assuming unmerited leadership.

Former Minister of Aviation, Aremu Yahaya, and former governorship aspirant in the state, Bashiru Bolarinwa, who both addressed newsmen on behalf of the chieftains, said the group rejected arbitrary sharing of party offices between it and the Saraki’s group.

They said registration process and election of officials from ward to state executive is the only democratic process that would provide the desired confidence to all members of the party.

The chieftains asked that the state harmonising committee set up to midwife the party through registration process, ward congresses to the election of state officials must not be skewed in favour of Saraki’s group.

They said the committee must be composed of equal members from the new PDP with which Saraki defected to APC and the legacy parties that comprise members of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), Congress for Progressive Change, Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) and All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) and Labour Party (LP) that are members of APC in the state.

The group restated its objection to handling over of APC structure to Saraki by the national leadership of the party.

It declared: “We reject any rule that arrogates the leadership of the party in the state to his (Saraki) group either through the state governor or Saraki himself.”

The chieftains, who claimed that over 80 per cent of members of PDP in the state refused to follow Saraki to APC and that over 80 per cent of members of APC are threatening to defect to PDP because of him said they could not fathom the reason the national leadership of APC would hand over the structure of the party to the politician.

“If Senator Saraki has now lost out in all that he was in the PDP and also rejected by his people at home, why then should we entrust the platform of our party into such hand who apparently is a spent force,” they queried.