In a swift reaction to the Governor of Kwara State, Mallam AbdulRasaq AbdulRahman’s statement during the launching of a book ‘O to ge’ authored by Tony Oyeyiola, where he accused some leaders of All Progressives Congress of embezzlling hundreds of million Naira meant for his governorship campaign; the party chairman in the State, Chief Bashir Omolaja Bolarinwa has come out openly to challenge the Governor to account for the campaign fund that was given to him from the National Secretariat of APC in the build up to the 2019 general elections.
Bolarinwa in a phone conversation with media men on Sunday said the governor collected the sum of one billion naira from the APC National Headquarters to prosecute the elections in the state.
“Once again, I maintained that the governor has told the world the truth that he did not fund the campaign of the party. He was contacted and after approving the campaign structure headed by Chief Sunday Oyebiyi, the Senatorial Chairman of APC in Kwara North Senatorial district, he nominated architect Kale Belgore to be on the campaign. The report of the committee was sent to him through his nominee but he turned his back and abandoned the party. We were desperate to win the election and change the status quo in the state. We approached Alhaji Lai Mohammed and it was the minister who funded the campaign of the party for the 2019 elections including the presidential campaign.” He maintained.
On the allegation over the first tranche of the campaign fund received from the APC National Headquarters by the governor on behalf of the party, which he said remained unknown to him, He said: “Let me state this once again for prosterity sake, I think the governor need to explain to the general public and the overwhelming supporters of our great party on how he spent the sum of one billion naira received solely by him on behalf of the party in a bid to prosecute the 2019 general elections.”
“Governor AbdulRazaq collected this money, warehoused it and didn’t carry us, the party executives along which I’m the Chairman”.
It will be recalled that a former Vice Chairman of the APC in the North Central had said that the erstwhile National Chairman of the APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomole had given N1 billion Naira each to states the party desired to win in 2019. He listed Kwara, Delta, River and other states that were then in the opposition among the states that the APC earmarked and disbursed slugh funds for.
Speaking on Saturday at the launch of a book titled “O to ge”, the governor, in what is his first public comment on the crisis, accused aggrieved leaders of the party of receiving hundreds of millions of naira as donations for the “Kwara struggle” without delivering a kobo to him.
Represented by Deputy Governor, Kayode Alabi, AbdulRazaq said party officials were equally barred from campaigning with him until the presidential election had been won and the pendulum was clearly swinging in his favour.
He said Otoge, the struggle of Kwarans, did not necessarily start in 2019.
“I need to set the record straight about the party crisis. It did not begin after the election or swearing-in. It is safe to say that those who claimed to own the party in the state at that time practically disowned me until after the President had won his election and the coast became clearer back home. Here is the story.”
“Shortly after the primaries in October, the party told me they had set up a campaign structure. Nobody consulted me before doing that, even though I was the governorship candidate. They asked me to fund the campaign structure that I was not privy to. Of course I declined it.
“I would later lead my own small campaign team across the state. It is on record that the party officially boycotted my campaign tours. Party officials got the instruction not to attend my campaign. A few of them can testify to this. I went round the whole of Kwara North without the party.
“I am not aware of any decent democracy where a candidate would not be given the privilege of shaping the direction of his own campaign. It is even worse that my campaign was boycotted because I refused to be led by the nose.
“I have told these stories of the slogan and of the party issues to disabuse the mind of Kwarans or friends of Kwara who may not have had this information. In doing so, I am not claiming sole credit for the success of the struggle. Far from it. I have done so simply to clear the air, and this book launch offers the right platform to speak up.
“And for Ministers, Governors, party supporters and friends of Kwara who I later heard donated hundreds of millions of naira to support the Otoge struggle in Kwara, I want to say that I did not receive a kobo of that fund. But how that money was managed or stolen is a story for another day”, Abdulrazaq said.
