Ilorin stands still as APC’s Abdulrahman leads pro-Buhari rally

Thousands of Kwara State All Progressives Congress (APC) members and supporters yesterday locked down Ilorin, the state capital, as the party’s governorship candidate, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, led other candidates to mobilise voters ahead of the general elections.

During the rally, thousands of residents lined the streets and rode in a long motorcade and heavy trucks to convey the APC campaigners amid shouts of O To Ge (Enough Is Enough), the party’s campaign slogan in the state.

The rally was also dominated by shouts of Sai Buhari.

The campaign train took off from Fate end of the state capital and criss-crossed the densely populated areas, like Pata Market, Gambari, Okelele, Abayawo, Omoda and peaked at Pakata, where the party’s candidates took turns to address the masses.

“We are committed to end the tyranny in our state. O To Ge! We will ensure workers are paid their dues at the right time. A government that cannot account for trillions of naira of public funds cannot expect to be trusted again,” Abdulrazaq told the rally.

The APC candidate also laughed off a recent claim by Senate President Bukola Saraki that APC planned to make Kwara a part of the Southwest.

He dismissed the claim as the antic of drowning politicians hanging no straw to hang on to.

“If West means Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, but Bukola took Kwara to the West in 2015 when Asiwaju Tinubu was leader of the APC,” AbdulRazaq said.

He added: “Their desperate attempt to incite the public against us has failed. Every student of history understands the role my father, A. G. F. Abdulrazaq (SAN), played in 1955 to convince the Willinks Commission on Minorities that Ilorin belonged to the Northern Region. Where was Saraki in those years? Where is his sense of history?”

Also, Leader of the APC in the state, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, yesterday described the allegation by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that APC is planning to annex the state to Southwest as a tissue of lies.

At the kick-off of the PDP governorship campaign at Bode-Saadu in Moro Local Government Area on Tuesday, Senate President Bukola Saraki alleged that desperate politicians and their local collaborators were planning to annex the state to the Southwest.

But Mohammed, who is also the Information and Culture Minister, explained that “in this season of politics, everything goes”.

The minister spoke in Ilorin, the state capital, at a women sensitisation forum for the forthcoming 2019 elections.

The event was organised by the women wing of the APC in the state.

He said: “Our problem is not ethnicity; it is not religion; it is not gender. These elections will not be determined on the basis of ethnicity, religion or gender. The main issues here have to do with how our state has been governed in the past 50 years, 40 of which have been dominated by a single family.

“What has happened to the commonwealth, which has been cornered by a single dynasty at the expense of the people? Where are the roads and other infrastructure to justify the huge resources that have accrued to the state? If you follow a path for so long and it leads you nowhere, won’t you try another path? These are the issues.”