Date: 2019-11-10

The crisis rocking the Kwara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress deepened on Thursday when the state Deputy Governor, Mr Kayode Alabi, received the newly constituted executive of the party in the Ifelodun Local Government Area of the state.

The newly constituted executive had been disowned by the state Chairman of the party, Bashir Bolarinwa.

Alabi and Bolarinwa are from the area.

The Ifelodun LGA of the APC last Sunday, at a special congress, removed the council Chairman, Shillo Awobimpe, and his deputy, Mallam Baba Malik, over alleged misappropriation of funds and replaced them with Abdulateef Quadri and Mallam Nasiru Bello, as chairman and vice chairman, respectively.

But the state chairman, in a signed statement on Wednesday, denounced any factional executive of the party in council and affirmed the leadership of Awobimpe.

He also emphasised that all the local government party officers who took the oath of office on September 15, 2018, remained the authentic officers of the party at their respective local governments.

However, the deputy governor received the new executive of the party from the area of the state led by its new chairman, Abdulateef Quadri, on Thursday in his office during a courtesy call and charged members of the party to be loyal to the party and the government of Governor Abdulrahman AbdulRazaq.

But Bolarinwa, in a statement, said, "In the absence of a notice to that effect, all subsisting structures of the party from the ward to the local and state levels remain in place and sacrosanct." He also called on party members in the state to "refrain from any action or activity capable of breaching the peace of the state."

He also said security operatives had been duly informed of the activities of those bent on destroying the party because of personal interests.