Members of the Elders Caucus and 10 governorship aspirants under the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State have raised the alarm over an alleged plot to coarse traditional rulers in the state to back the purported emergence of the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Yakubu Danladi Salihu as the party’s governorship candidate in the 2027 general elections.

The governorship aspirants and elders said they had uncovered plot by those hell-bent on foisting Salihu on the APC as its governorship candidate, to mobilise traditional rulers for a visit to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to thank him for accepting and endorsing the Speaker as the party’s candidate for the 2027 general elections.

They also dismissed insinuations that the governorship aspirants had resolved to back the Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, as their preferred candidate, saying the DG never obtained any nomination form.

They raised the alarm during a meeting with the national leadership of the APC, held on Wednesday June 17 and Thursday 18 in Abuja.

The gubernatorial aspirants, who were in attendance at the meeting included Dr. Bashir Omolaja Bolarinwa; Senator Salihu Mustapha, Turakin Ilorin; Dr. Ibrahim Yahaya Oloriegbe; Alhaji Tajudeen Abdulkadir Audu, Makaman Lafiagi; Dr. Toyin Tajudeen Alabi; Rt. Hon. Mohammed Bio Omar; Dr. Muyideen Salako; Mohammed Dele Belgore, SAN; Ambassador Abdulfatai Yahya Seriki and Capt. Ahmad Mahmud.

The Chairman of the Kwara APC Elders Caucus, Chief James Bamisaye Ayeni, who led the delegation to the meeting, emphasised that no governorship primary election in the state produced the Speaker, adding that the party had at no time picked him as its consensus candidate.

The caucus said, “To the best of our knowledge, the party has not published the endorsement of any candidate in Kwara State. We would therefore like to caution the planners and masterminds of this desperate attempt, not to drag our highly respected Royal Fathers into an intraparty matter and affair. It is a settled fact that traditional rulers are fathers of all, irrespective of political inclination and they are insulated from partisan political calculations.

“Never in the history of our dear state has our Royal Fathers been dragged into affairs of any Political Party in particular and participating in politics in general. Therefore, dragging our Royal Fathers into the internal affairs of the APC is a sign of desperation, which is akin to decorating a Trojan Horse. It would be an unprecedented abuse of privileged positions by the planners and schemers of this mindless and inappropriate visit to Mr. President.

“We have it on record that despite the contentious circumstances that characterised the nomination of APC gubernatorial candidate in 2018, our traditional rulers were neither involved, nor have they ever been involved in the process of nomination and emergence of any party’s candidate.

“We are further aware that there has not been any record whatsoever from 2019, when the present administration came on board, up till date which indicated that our Royal Fathers and/or State Elders, leaders and the critical stakeholders in Kwara State, were ever mobilised to pay a visit to thank Mr. President for the honour done to prominent sons and daughters of Kwara State, who were appointed into key federal ministries, agencies and parastatals in the past.

“We have also neither heard of an advocacy visit by our Governor to the Presidency, in order to lobby or canvass for opportunities for the State nor learnt of an occasion, where he had deemed it fit to mobilize the citizens of the state to go and thank Mr. President on the efforts being made by the Federal Government to tame the ugly security situation in Kwara State.

“Therefore, we would like to appeal to our dignified and respected Traditional Rulers not to allow any person, however highly placed, to drag them and our Traditional Institution into the affairs of Political Parties or to engage in partisan politics.” (Weekend Trust)

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