Date: 2021-11-01

FORMER Presidential Candidate and a Chieftain of the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has said that leaders of the party would not allow the gains that came with the liberation of Kwara State in the 2015 election to be reversed despite the current schism by some political stakeholders in Kwara.

According to a statement, Olawpo-Hashim spoke during a courtesy visit to the Governor of Kwara State, Mallam Abdulraham , Abdulrazaq, yesterday.

He maintained that the liberation of Kwara took several decades and inflicted several battle scars on the participants, adding that "no matter the level of disagreement among the stakeholders, Kwara must not be allowed to go back to slavery and socio-political emasculation that had arrested the progress of the state for many years."

Never again shall Kwarans be allowed to be enslaved or go back to the era that stunted the growth of Kwara and Kwarans," he stressed and extolled the governor’s policy of giving political space to youths and women.

He also commended Abdulrazaq's efforts to restore the dignity of the state in the areas of education, infrastructures and human capital development, saying: "In fact, going forward is the only way forward for Kwara."

On the current crisis in the state chapter of the APC, Olawepo-Hashim assured that the crisis will be resolved 'as a family affair in a family way," and urged the feuding parties to sheath their swords in the larger interest of Kwarans.

Responding, the governor recalled that the efforts to reposition the state had been challenging because "we met a state that has literally collapsed in every sector" and promised to continue in his resolve to reposition the State to work for the larger interest of the people.