Thousands of APC Members in Kwara Defect to YPP

Hammed Shittu in Ilorin

Thousands of members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State yesterday formally joined the Young Progressives Party (YPP) because of intra party crisis in the state’s chapter of the APC.

The group popularly called Third Force (TF) said that they would wrestle power from the APC in the state come 2023 as the major leaders of the “O To Ge” movement that have defected to the YPP.

The State Coordinator of the TF, Mr. Abdulfatah AbdulRahman, who spoke with journalists in Ilorin on the defection, said that the alleged inability of the state chapter of the APC to demonstrate fairness, equity and provision of a level playing ground for every member of the party prompted their decision to dump the party for the YPP.

AbdulRaham also alleged that their former party excluded majority of the party members from exercising their legitimate right during the membership/revalidation exercise.

He added that “the development is a signal that the current administration in Kwara State is not interested in securing a popular mandate at the next elections.”

AbdulRahman, who was the former senatorial aspirant in the APC for Kwara Central Senatorial Zone during the 2019 election, noted that, “the aspirations of Kwarans for good governance and overall development of the state cannot be achieved under the APC with the existing condition.”

He opined that the above developments have given cause for our collective decision to look for an alternative, viable political platform where every individual can participate fully in our state’s democracy.

“We have reached out to all the existing registered political parties in Nigeria. Not only that, we equally scrutinised each party to ascertain its suitability in consonance with the hopes and aspirations of residents of Kwara State.

“The political party we have chosen is a party that assures equal participation for all men, women, young and old, rich and poor.

“It is a party that ensures that the rule of law, equity, justice and fair play are its central ethos and on this strength I am pleased to announce that it is the collective decision of all members of the TF to join the YPP.”

Receiving the decamped members of the APC into the YPP, the State Chairman of the YPP, Mr. Charles Olufemi Folayan, said: “We are delighted to receive these numbers of strong political players in Kwara State into our party YPP.

“It is evident that they have seen the light ahead and have decided to join the true progressives’s party to fix Nigeria and Kwara State in particular.”

Folayan, however, assured that “the party would form government come 2023 in view of the major leaders of the ‘O To Ge’ movement that have formally joined the YPP in Kwara State.”