The leadership of Nigeria’s ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC), has dissolved the Kwara State executive of the party, citing electoral malfeasance in the last ward, local and state congresses.
The country’s Senate President, Bukola Saraki, hails from the North-central State of Kwara and has had a running battle with APC, the party that brought him to power.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed had at the weekend reportedly asked party officials loyal to Senate President Bukola Saraki to resign their appointments and announced Bashir Bolarinwa as the new state chairman of the party.
Perhaps, acting out a written script, APC’s National Working Committee (NWC) led by its chairman, Adams Oshiomhole on Monday “reviewed the actions of some leaders of the party that emerged from the congresses who participated in an open rally calling on the Senate President to decamp to the PDP”.
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The party said after a careful and exhaustive deliberation on this and other developments in the state chapter of the party that it
resolved “to dissolve all party organs from Ward, Local Government and State Executive of the Party in Kwara state; and to constitute caretaker committee at all levels of the party of the party organ at Ward, Local Government and State Executive Committees.
“That Hon. Bashir Bolarinwa shall and is hereby appointed as the Chairman of the Caretaker Committee of the State Executive Committee of APC in Kwara State”.
With the party structure clearly taken away from him, the development tactically calls out Senator Saraki to play his next card of further disrupting the party in order to create a stalemate or grab the structures by force.
Saraki has, in recent public appearances, given hint that he might dump APC for the major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The Senate President’s next move, analysts believe, may quicken his departure for PDP.