By Mumini AbdulKareem
The leadership crisis rocking the Kwara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) took a new twist over the weekend as the party chairman; Bashiru Omolaja Bolarinwa has reportedly started moves to weed the governor’s loyalists out of the party.
Bolarinwa survived the plot to suspend him from the party on Friday allegedly sponsored by Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq ironically at a supposed peace meeting held at Kwara Hotel.
However, following the failed moved which many party leaders described as a “coup and ambush”, the embattled chairman have reportedly commissioned his supporters across the wards to remove the Governors men from the party to avoid a repeat of the incident.
To this end, the secretary of the party, Mustapha Ishowo who hails from Alanamu in Kwara Central and a lackey of the Governor from Kwara South, Rev. Abel Adewumi have been suspended by their respective ward executives.
Adewumi moved the motion for the botched suspension of the party Chairman during the failed Kwara Hotel event and seconded by party member from Kaiama, Alhaji Musa Baba Mohammed.
In their letter of suspension jointly signed by its chairman and secretary, Alhaji Muyideen Ikolaba and Sharafadeen Onituwo respectively along with “25 members”, the Alanamu ward executive described Ishowo as the main actor behind the party’s crisis in the ward, local government and state level and further accused him of financial impropriety.
“You are henceforth relieved of all activities that has to do with All Progressive Congress in Alanamu ward”, the statement added.
For Rev Adewumi, his “sins” that warranted his suspension according to his ward executives in Oko ward, Irepodun local government was that he was using his position as a state executive to disorganize the party in the state adding that “in line with the constitution of APC and as a chairman of APC party in Oko Ward, supported by all the members and the executives, you have been suspended from the party at ward level till further notice”, it added.
Speaking on the issue, a top leader of the party and former PDP chairman in the state, Iyiola Oyedepo declared support for Bolarinwa during a telephone chat with National Pilot on Sunday adding that “I am comfortable with Bolarinwa’s leadership”.
“They said there is nothing like suspension and dissolution again. If suspension was an ambushed but has failed, I don’t think there is anything again. Party crisis is not new, it will always be but once it has been resolved somehow, the party will move on. APC is now moving on. The chairman is no more under any threat or suspension. He is still the leading power in the party and it’s for him to roll out his agenda as before. I am comfortable that the power is still with the chairman”, Oyedepo added.
Although efforts to reach party leaders like Prof Oba, Lai Mohammed and Chief Rex Olawoye among others on the issue proved abortive last night, their aides, loyalists and supporters said most of them are on the same page with Oyedepo.
According to one of them who confided in this medium last night, the issue of the suspension and counter suspension was not part of the discussion of the party leaders when Alhaji Lai Mohammed came for the town hall meeting in Ilorin.
Meanwhile Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq was booed on Thursday during the failed suspension meeting of the Bolarinwa.
Bolarinwa’s supporters who had mobilised massively to the venue after getting wind of the governor’s purported plot almost harassed the Governor who attended the meeting with the Speaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly, Engr Danladi Yakubu-Solihu.
He was however whisked away by his security details amidst shout of “Ramoni Ole, Ole, Ole” by loyalist of the party chairman after the meeting degenerated to a free-for-all with chairs flying in opposite directions.
