Kwara APC leaders, stakeholders fight ex-VC for defying Buhari, party resolution

Former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Professor Shuaib Oba Abdulraheem may have run into troubled waters for being the only one disagreeing with the governorship candidate of the party in Kwara State.

Professor Oba was one of the 12 aspirants who ran for the coveted governorship seat of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the October 6, primary election in which Mallam Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq was declared winner.

However, the erstwhile Vice Chancellor appeared to be vehement in opposing the outcome of the primary election as declared by the APC election panel that conducted the exercise.

At a press conference in Ilorin, elders and stakeholders of the APC however frowned at the hard-line position taken by Professor Abdulraheem even when he had lost out at the appropriate appeal panel of the party.

Besides, they alleged that the Professor was present last week at the a meeting with President Mohammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa where all issues were addressed and put to rest and Abdulrazaq was subsequently endorsed by the president and everyone present.

Senator Mohammed Ahmed, who addressed the press briefing on behalf of the group, said Abdulraheem’s engagement with the press after the presidential endorsement of Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq as the party’s gubernatorial candidate for Kwara State amounted to anti-party activities.

According to him, party members felt relieved by the reach out of Abdulrasaq to each of the aspirants as well as the efforts of the party leadership to get the party in unison.

Ahmed said it was sad enough that on Saturday October 26, 2018, the aspirant Professor Oba Abdulraheem who was at the presidential endorsement of Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq arrived at Ilorin airport to paint a different picture of what happened in Abuja.

“His engagement with the press was not in the spirit of the Abuja accord with Minister of Information and Culture. Alhaji Lai Mohammed. Neither did it represent the resolutions of aspirants with National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.

“It further embarrassed the decent meeting of Kwara APC and the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is on record that supporters of Prof. Shuaib Abdulraheem destroyed the billboards of Mallam Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq.

“We view these actions as disrespectful both to the party and the president. We call on the state party chairman of APC, Hon. Omolaja Bolarinwa to take disciplinary action against such outward behaviour which could be interpreted as supportive of opposition”, he said.

The group noted that since the appeal panel had dismissed the complaints of the aggrieved parties, there was the need for party members to be committed to a purposeful and united APC as 2019 elections draw near.