It was not unexpected that former Action Congress of Nigeria’s governorship candidate in the 2011 election in Kwara State, Mr. Dele Belgore, left the All Progressives Congress for the Peoples Democratic Party over the alleged injustice by the APC leadership. But will his leaving the APC change his political fortunes in Kwara, Hammed Shittu asks

After several weeks of consultations, former governorship candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State, Mr. Muhammed Dele Belgore (SAN), penultimate week, dumped the APC for the Peoples Democratic Party. The event which took place at his GRA residence located along Abdulrasaq road, Ilorin, the state capital, saw thousands of his supporters across the 16 local government council areas of the state thronged to the venue of the declaration.
Prior to the declaration of Belgore for PDP, there had been series of meetings and calculations on  his next line of action following the defection of the  new PDP led by former governor of the state and senator representing Kwara Central, Senator Bukola Saraki, to the APC.

Others who moved with Saraki to APC included Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed, former acting national chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, the sixteen council chairmen in the state, 22 out of the 24 lawmakers in the state house of assembly and all the six members of the House of Representatives among others.
The interim national leadership of the party was said to have directed the all existing members of the legacy parties that formed the APC to work with Saraki as the political leader of the state.

This development, THISDAY gathered, was also affirmed when the marketing train of the APC led by its interim national chairman, Chief Bisi Akande met with the Saraki group in the New PDP and said the Saraki political structure possessed the winning machinery that had been in existence for almost forty years and that if they could join the APC, this structure would be in the total control of the party and add value to the electoral success of APC in the state and in the country in particular.

But following the defection of the Saraki group to APC, the Belgore group viewed thought it was unjust for the Saraki group to take over the political control of the APC in the state and that led to series of crisis. The Belgore group believed that since the Saraki group joined the party as a fresher, it should queue behind it on the control of the party in the state.
After series of meetings with the national leadership of the APC to change this situation, the Belgore group later formed a new interim state executive council led by Rev. Bunmi Olusonna, using the former campaign office of Belgore as its state secretariat located along Asa dam road, also in Ilorin, the capital.

Olusona, in his maiden press briefing, told reporters that the group would not succumb to the pressures from the national leadership of the APC to hand over control to the Saraki group. "We are the owner of the house and anybody coming to meet us in our house should come behind us and not lord them over us."
As the dust raised by this development was settle, the group further formed a new APC in the state which the national leadership of the party quickly dismissed and affirmed that APC has nothing of such in the country.
It was after this that the national leadership of the party sent a delegation from Abuja to inaugurate the state interim executive council of the APC. The delegation was led by Gen. Abdullahi Aboki, who conducted the election at the Mandate Hall of Senator Saraki located along Adewole area, Ilorin.

After the election, a new state interim executive council led by Alhaji Isola Balogun-Fulani and the executive council members were later sworn-in. The Saraki group had four members while the remaining five positions were given to legacy parties of ACN, CPC, ANPP and APGA.
As the interim state executive was put in place, Belgore issued a statement rejecting his appointment into the governing board of the state chapter of the APC. He alleged that, he was not consulted before the appointment was ratified and announced.
In his desire to seek a new platform, the Belgore group was in attendance during the formal return of Senator Gbemisola Saraki to PDP in Ilorin. Thus, on Wednesday February 12, Belgore and his supporters thronged his residence in Ilorin where he publicly defected to PDP.
Addressing his supporters, Belgore said "The decision became necessary because the leadership of APC has let them down by the way and manner they handled the defection of members of nPDP to APC in Kwara State, adding that his defection was symbolic because people have waited with baited breath, "for us to make a pronouncement on our political future.

"The expectations and the anxieties are understandable given the happenings in the APC which we laboured so hard to nurture as a party of choice in Kwara from its ACN days," noting that he had hoped that with the birth of APC, "our struggle for socio economic development of our dear state which we began in 2010, would be better served under a stronger and broader political platform."
But the hope, he said had suddenly evaporated, saying “An alliance of those who yearn for change and development and those who desire to maintain the status quo of oppression and denial of opportunity was suddenly foisted upon us.

"By that alliance, the politics of patronage, of denial of merit-based opportunity, of running the state like personal assets, of deploying public wealth for the Union unfit of a select few, of selling the state assets to shadowy private concerns was given a new life. But it is not just about pitching of the voices for change against the forces of retrogression; it is also about the manner in which it was done. "We said yes, anyone could be admitted to the party, but we insisted that it would be undemocratic, inequitable and even contrary to the very idea of change that APC claims it stands for, to automatically hand over the party structures to new entrants, especially when those entrants are at the commanding heart of the oppression and arrested development of Kwara and its people.

"Not only does this arrangement confer the party structure on these new entrants, it is pre-determined to ensure that they continue, no matter the pretence of internal election to control it. Thus, by this ultimately self-defeating arrangement, APC had determined the scores of the game even before the kickoff. The same ugly trend occurred in Kano, Sokoto and some other States.

"APC's leadership had in seeking to satisfy a few alienated the rank and file and to many, the soul of the party," stressing that, "the owner of a home needs not be displaced to give any false sense of friendship to a stranger. Our people do not believe that people are made for a platform. Rather they believe that platforms are made for the people. No positive change is possible where we are to coexist with the same elements that the people of Kwara want to dislodge.

“To our supporters and political dependents, APC has let us down. We have therefore decided not to be part of an arrangement that put us in the same ship driven by the oppressors. We are therefore joining the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which - as fate now has it - has shed the very core of the liabilities that made our people run away from it.
"We are joining hands with other like minds in the PDP who were unjustly shut out because of their progressive bent to endear the party to the people of Kwara State. Together, we will work to advocate and bring about economic liberation, equal opportunity for all and positive development to our dear state and its people. We join forces to break the shackles of oppression and restore our state back to its former glory," he said.

Notable chieftains who defected with him are Akogun Iyiola oyedepo, Olusona, Alhaji Idris Mahmoud, Dr Sa'ad Omoiya, Alhaji Isa Afon, Hon Agboola Ismail, Alhaji Toyin Ayinla, Hon.  Funsho Sa'ad, Alhaji Atanda Zoro, Alhaja Khadijat Abdullateef, Alhaji Ganiyu Onikere, and other supporters across the state who were in the APC.
But the state chairman of APC, Alhaji Isola Balogun- Fulani has described Belgore’s defection as good riddance.

“The party in the state sees the exit of Belgore as a good riddance to bad rubbish because he is more of a liability than asset in the political chess game of Kwara state.
“He is more of an ethnic card player than a politician who is sincere to serve the people. If Belgore is truly a progressive politician which APC represents, he would have been in the APC which everybody sees as the platform that would address the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians including the people of Kwara state.
“But for him to have claimed that his exit in the party was because he was not given the leadership of the party speaks volume and this clearly shows that he is more interested in his own aggrandisement rather than the interest of the people and this he has confirmed in his speech where he formally declared for PDP.

“But we want to congratulate the people of Kwara that the last of him has formally exited the platform that would take us to the next level. Everybody has seen that the only political party that is with the people is the APC”.
However, now that Belgore has defected to PDP, the views of  pundits  is whether or not he would make any difference in view of the array of other governorship aspirants that are already springing up in the PDP? Besides, not many agreed that he has as much clout to pull through anything for the PDP in the state, having risen to prominence through the platform of the same platform he now castigates.

The majority of those who glibly dismiss his boasting add that if indeed he had as much influence, how come President Goodluck Jonathan did not come to personally receive him into the PDP as he did for former Sokoto State governor, Attahiru Bafarawa, who defected to the party about the same time with him.

Perhaps, Belgore has an overrated impression of himself and might have hedged a wrong bet on a weightless influence by further plunging his chances in the emerging equation in the state. But whether or not these extrapolations key into what is genuinely obtainable in the state, events of the coming weeks would put paid to that.