The Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is out to salvage the party from total collapse, the Kwara State chapter has said.

Its chairman, Alhaji Ishola Balogun-Fulani, told reporters yesterday in Ilorin, the state capital, that it would be bad to allow the party to collapse.

He said: "Corrections were supposed to be made and when the well meaning people and loyalists of the party saw the way PDP was going, into the brink of collapse, they said before it collapses some people must salvage the party. And this salvaging team has taken over because that is the dream of the founding fathers of PDP."

The chair, who was represented by the party's secretary, Prince Yemi Afolayan, gave reasons for Baraje's emergence as chair.

He said: "There were noticeable breaches of party constitution. This national convention, which was supposed to be special national convention, we have it on authority that before the national convention date is fixed, NEC will meet and fix, and ratify the national convention. NEC fixed the date for July 20, and it changed. NEC did not fix the new date. So, the convention committee at that time fixed another date and dragged NEC to ratify it instead of NEC fixing the date. That is illegality as far as party is concerned.

"The convention was supposed to have authentic delegates that participated in 2012 convention and these delegates included ministers, special adviser to president, special assistant to president, ambassadors, commissioners of government in the state and special advisers to governors.

"All these people were disenfranchised. When there is a constant breach of the Constitution, then that executive cannot stand. Throughout the tenure of Tukur up till this moment, NEC is supposed to be held every quarter but he never held one. So there are a lot of illegalities that happened and people were fed up to the brim."

The chairman also debunked the alleged factionalisation of the party in the state, adding: "The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), (authentic) Kwara state chapter's attention has been drawn to the impersonation of the office of the state chairman of our great party and that of the party by some unscrupulous elements."

He added: "The impersonators of the office and indeed the state chapter of our great party are those dissidents whose antecedents in the political arena confirm these political jobbers that would hang to anything for survival.

"The state chapter of our party remains loyal and committed to the authentic PDP whose vision is to provide honest and selfless service to the generality of Nigerians.

"The Bamanga Tukur leadership is outdated and it has been dropped into waste basket of history as Baraje leadership has not only been acknowledged, embraced and endorsed but it has come to stay.

"While we urge all party men and women and our teeming supporters across the 16 local government areas of the state to ignore the ranting of the impersonators and remain focused and united, our party is one our political structure remains formidable.

"The party will not be deterred by these rented impersonators whose antecedent is known as dissidents. They are always available to serve as an agent of destabilisation. The Kwara PDP Chairman is Ishola Balogun Fulani ."