By Mumini AbdulKareem
The Kwara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected the list of nominees sent in by various local government caucuses for consideration in the new cabinet, National Pilot has gathered.
Among the reasons reportedly adduced by the APC for the rejection was the decision of most of the councils to return former commissioners and special advisers that were recently dropped by Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed.
To this end, the leadership of the APC has directed the compilation of a new list of nominees that will include fresh faces.
The APC has reportedly given today (Thursday) as deadline for the submission of the fresh lists.
Several calls and text message sent to the state Secretary of the party, Chief Bode Adekanye and the Publicity Secretary, Sulyman Buhari where neither picked nor replied last night before this paper went to bed.
According to several sources across the local governments who confided in our reporter on the matter, the directive of the party is coming on the heels of the disquiet generated by the initial list.
Until the new directive by the APC, some local governments have reportedly struggled to present a harmonised list of the nominees.
According to one of the sources, the party has directed that the new list should contain, a youth, a male and female, an instruction which he said was initially flouted by some local governments.
“The parry has rejected the initial lists and they have asked us to go back and rework the list in line with the directive to have one youth, a male and a female.
“Part of the new criteria is that we should also consider fresh faces especially from the areas or zones that are yet to benefit political appointment. They said they don’t want recycling this time around. We are looking at how this will play out because there are some commissioners in the dissolved cabinet that needed to be brought back for stability and exigency.
“What most of the stakeholders and caucuses did was to return some of the sacked commissioners and special advisers/assistants even though some of them were perceived back home not to have done well at all. It was reasoned that they should just be returned to finish their appointment slots in this government which is less than a year away instead of replacing them which may not give the new appointees the benefit of time to serve before the administration winds down.
“But the party rejected it and gave the stakeholders, Thursday (today) as deadline to come up with the new list of nominees for consideration,” the highly reliable source submitted.
Meanwhile, it was gathered that most councils are in last minute rush to beat the directive of the party.
Some of those who spoke with our reporter, said text message informing them of the latest directives was received on Tuesday and the local chapter of the party is making frantic efforts to convene caucus meeting.
“We are trying to convene a meeting today (Wednesday) and tomorrow (Thursday) to agree on a list that will be submitted to the party. But considering the short time, some of these meetings may not lead to harmonised stakeholders’ list because some caucus members may be absent,” the source from one of the local government in Kwara South, added.
However, it could not be confirmed whether the party will extend the deadline or the penalty that may be meted out to councils that flouts the directive.
Recall that the state chapter of the party had directed all the local governments to submit three names each to be considered for appointment as commissioners in the state.
Three additional names were requested for consideration as Special Advisers/Assistants.
Since that directive, some local governments have engaged in the process of selecting “preferred candidates” which had reportedly caused what a source described a “serious issue” with some caucus meetings ending in deadlock.
