A former member of the Kwara State House of Assembly and State Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), Chief Yemi Afolayan, addressed journalists on the issues of the forthcoming local government councils elections and other state matters. Hammed Shittu was there. Excerpts:

How is your party preparing for the October 26 local government council polls in the state?

We are the party in power; we are the party that is in government. The people of Kwara trust us and we trust our own people too.

We are prepared for the election, we are ready come rain, come sunshine and PDP will deliver any day. Our past achievements since year 2003 till date have continued to be our strength and the people of the state have known that.

Even, the present administration of Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed has continued to consolidate on the achievements and he has been able to meet the yearnings and aspirations of the electorate since he assumed the leadership of the state on May 29, 2011. There is no doubt that the ruling PDP is fully prepared and by the grace of God, PDP will win the election with a landslide victory in both the councillorship and chairmanship positions in all the 16 local government councils of the state.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recently registered the APC as a political party; will the party not be a serious threat to your party's hold on power in the state?

It is a welcome development as far as politics is concerned.

Fusing together of opposition parties under the umbrella of APC is a welcome development because it is going to make politics dynamic.

But that being as it were in Kwara state, all these opposition parties coming together does not even make any difference to us because we have seen them coming together for a long time and they have never been able to make any appreciable impact on our people.

Kwara State is very unique. It is true we had ACN, CPC and what have you, before. CPC has never had any showing. I don't even know where their state headquarters is, not to talk of my local government. CPC does not even exist and it doesn't exist in many other local governments. Talking about ACN, they tried in the last election. There is Lai Mohammed and Dele Belgore.