The All Progressives Congress in Kwara State Tuesday gave fresh insight into the emergence of former governor of the state, Senator Bukola Saraki as senate president, saying the North-Central zone of the party unanimously ratified his candidature.

The state chairman of APC, Alhaji Balogun-Fulani who spoke with journalists in Ilorin on Tuesday said, "the zone reached a compromise on Saraki's sole candidacy after his main challenger from the zone, Senator George Akume, opted out of the race to deputize Senator Ahmed Lawan from the North-East".

He alleged that Senator Akume betrayed his zone by aligning with Senator Lawan from the north-eastern part of the country.

Balogun- Fulani said that, the development led the North-central party leadership to endorse Saraki for the plumb seat.

He noted that the zone was initially allotted the seat by the National Working Committee of the party, but backtracked when the coast was clearing for Saraki's ambition.

"Saraki is not over-ambitious. We the APC chairmen of North-Central started it all. After we won our elections, then we took it upon ourselves that we must ask for what we think is our own benefit out of the goodies of electoral victory.

"Seven chairmen of our zone met and wrote a letter to the National Secretariat and other stakeholders that we want the Senate President to be zoned to our zone because we have performed credibly. We want them to give us that one so as to compensate us for what we have done by turning North-Central PDP States to APC. And I'm telling you categorically that the National Working Committee of the party zoned the position of the Senate President to the North-Central.

"When we did that, we were not doing it because we want Saraki to be senate president. What we want is that let the position be zoned to the North-Central so that whoever is high-ranking APC senator can vie for that post. And we have three high-ranking senators from the zone; they are George Akume, Abdullahi Adamu and Bukola Saraki.

"When this thing was zoned, they said it would be taken to APC caucus for ratification. When Akume decided that he is going to become the deputy of Ahmed Lawan, we at the zone were very angry with him and we stood up that that is not our bargain. What we bargained for is senate president.

"We now re-emphasized that since Akume is out of the race on his own, we from the North Central were supporting Bukola Saraki who is the sole candidate from the zone", he said.

The Kwara APC chairman slammed Chief Ayo Opadokun for labeling Saraki, as a man who is not ready to support President Muhammadu in his anti-corruption battle.

"That is his (Opadokun) own personal thinking. In the history of Nigeria, he has never held any position. He is a man that just sits in his house and conjure anything. He is never in public domain; he has never served anywhere.

"For we that know Saraki, we know he can fight corruption with what he has done in Kwara State. He has developed this state from civil service to an industrial state. Every Nigerian knows he is man that can be saddled with the responsibility.

"He exposed the matter of fuel subsidy and you said he cannot fight corruption. Had it been he cannot fight corruption, he would never expose what is called subsidy. Because of what he had exposed, we were able to have SURE-P, where government had diverted the money it paid for subsidy to other useful areas in Nigeria. So he is man that can fight corruption to standstill", Balogun Fulani said.