Our dear Gentlemen of the Press,

We greet and felicitate with you all as we enter the year 2014 which promises to be a momentous one for our dear state Kwara. We join you all in giving thanks to God for guiding us through the challenges of the out gone year to the beginning of 2014.

Whatever challenges we may have been facing in Kwara state and whatever storms we may have confronted and survived, our state remained blessed with gifted men and women who believe in our common destiny. 

Exactly 25 days today we met with you to express our displeasure on the decision of the leadership of our party to hand over the structure of our party to Senator Bukola Saraki who just decamped to our party. We also made it clear then the distinction between what a leadership should be and what it should not and we also pointed out that our members and supporters who are in the majority across the state and who for long suffered deprivation would never accept the dominance of Saraki in their party.

We are no doubt aware of the individual limitations that you may have in reporting our events but we particularly noted with dismay the opposite angles from which the public read our position in some of the papers that reported us the last time we addressed you. 

While we appreciate your responsibility as the fourth estate of the realm, we believe that objectivity and fairness should dictate the justification of the freedom of the press which we graciously enjoy today. And in pursuance of these objectives that we solemnly hold dear, the public is entitled to the truth and that only correct information can form the basis for sound journalism and ensure confidence of the people. We believe also that you have a duty to publish only facts, never to suppress such facts, or falsify either to suit your own purpose or any other purpose. We should always remember that we both have a responsibility to ensure that our democracies survive.

Today and since the last time that we addressed the gentlemen of the press, events have continued to unfold that has therefore necessitated the need for us to let the world understand our position proper. You must have been fully informed that Senator Saraki and his group are members of the APC now. This is more so as he now keeps the company of progressive governors and leaders in Nigeria. He and the local chapter of the nPDP have announced to their followers in the state that like clothe, they have now changed their party. The whole world should know that in admitting the Senator and his group into the party in the state, the leadership of the original members of the party in the state was not consulted. This probably accounted for Senator Saraki belief that they were brought into the party to take over what they consider an empty political platform. 

And since they announced their arrival, they never thought it morally right that they should allow themselves to be formally integrated into the party through timely interaction with original members of the party. Because of their ignorance and the lack of deep understandings of the focus and ideology of the party they changed the party slogan from CHANGE to OLOYE a personality cult strange to what the APC stands for. 

Ironically, when Senator Saraki and his handful supporters left the PDP, those he left behind changed their slogan to FREEDOM. The circumstances leading to their entry to the party may appear acceptable to the national leadership of our party but it violates all forms of decency and morality and it is not acceptable to our members in Kwara state.

If the national leadership of our party does not believe that we are politically relevant in the state, they need to understand that Senator Saraki whom they highly rated has been a product of federal might. They both have a history of election manipulation. Without any form of federal might that allows them the support of the police, INEEC and other security agencies, they cannot win in a free and fair election in the state. Even with him as a sitting Governor in 2011, he was roundly defeated in his ancestral primary constituency of Ilorin West. It took the manipulation of the rural ASA local government area to get him to the Senate. And the ease with which the APC trounced the PDP in the recent Offa local government election winning by a margin of eleven out of the twelve wards of the local government council upon which Senator Saraki and his erstwhile stooge Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed almost depleted the state treasury is a clear indication of what Kwarans want. It is not too late for the leadership of the APC to re-examine their proposal to hand over the party structure in the hands of Senator Saraki. 

It is a general knowledge that the Senator Saraki of 2003 whose benevolent father along with Atiku Abubakar cleared the way and actualized the takeover of Kwara state politically by the Saraki dynasty and made Saraki junior the state governor is now a different person from what he was then. By 2007, Senator Saraki then as Governor was well positioned that he took advantage of his incumbency to further entrench the family hegemony on the state. 

In 2011, as a result of some kind of home front crisis bothering on political succession, the former governor narrowly made it to the Senate. But by 2013 he had lost all his well known political advantages. The ‘mystic’ power of his father died with him (father) in 2012 while Bukola’s sister Gbemi disputes her brother’s claim to the inheritance of their late father’s over sized shoes. As one person with an exaggerated opinion of his modest endowment Senator Saraki in 2013 was at the head of a rebel group that were eventually pushed out of the ruling party where he used to call the shot. The logic here is that if Senator Saraki has now lost out in all that he was in the PDP and also rejected by his people at home, why then should we entrust the platform of our party into such hand who apparently is a spent force.

We are still at a loss what informed our leaders to hand over our party structure to Senator Saraki. This is one man whose eight year tenure as a state governor was very uninspiring and ineffectual. He left the state worse than he met it in 2003. Even with whatever he claims to achieve over 80 percent of members of his erstwhile party still declined to follow him to APC and on his arrival in APC more than 80 percent of members of the party are planning to quit the party for PDP because of Senator Saraki. Now it takes a lot of persuasion to keep our members for now. Now if members of his party decline to follow him and on his arrival APC members are taking to their heels, then where are the people the APC leaders believe Senator Saraki can muster support from?

One of the characteristics of good leadership is the study of the political mood of a people. The mood of the people of Kwara is a cry for change. The people of Kwara see the desired change in a party whose slogan is CHANGE. Is the APC change mantra therefore a deception? How can a true and qualitative change come from a people that have been the source of our misery? Kwarans have long waited to disrobe Senator Saraki in the market place but curiously the national leadership of APC wants to robe him for interest other than that of the people of the state. The leadership of the party have only and merely provided him a temporary lifeline as the people of Kwara are wiser now and have taken their decision and destiny in their hands.

Gentleman sometimes our memory faults us and our thinking too cynical. Not long ago same Senator Saraki while on a radio programme in Kwara castigated and berated the leadership of the APC predicting that the party three letters (APC) will break and give way. Ironically today Senator Saraki has found his way to APC. That politics should remain so personal and so poisonous is absurd at a time of great promise for Kwara. 

Even though Senator Saraki has now eaten his vomit our party leaders have lost their best chances in Kwara. Senator Sarakis claim to own a winning streak is rather a foolish and misplaced assumption. It is not a secret that Senator Saraki like his father is a product of the Federal government whose political machinery was deployed to his arbitrary use. Now that he is no longer in the favour list of the ruling party, Kwarans and indeed Nigerian will be waiting to see if he actually owned such streak without federal government support. 

It is still a mystery to us the content of the agreement between our party national leadership and the nPDP of Senator Saraki. The pieces we can only garner comes from the party’s national publicity secretary Alhaji Lai Mohammed who has continued to pretend not to be one of us in the state as he has turned his back to phases of political and economic oppression that years of Saraki political hegemony represent in the state.

Not averse to the arrogant carriage and the undemocratic practices of Senator Saraki and having no political hold on any part of Kwara, Alhaji Lai Mohammed does not mind worshiping and cringing at the feet of the senator. Throughout Senator Saraki’s eight year as governor, Alhaji Lai did not see anything wrong with the administration. For long we have discovered that Alhaji Lai have not been part of our political struggle in the state and hence we unequivocally state that he cannot represent our interest as members of party or the interest of the party itself. 

In his recent statement to the press, Alhaji Lai claimed that of all the five states that have been rejecting the decision of the national leadership of the party to hand over the party structure to their state governors only Kwara and Rivers did not show any resentment. This is a figment of his imagination. We also see this statement as unfortunate and it goes to underscore the fact that Alhaji Lai still has some hidden agenda despite the acknowledgement by the national headquarters of our party that all is not well in Kwara.

As we earlier reiterated, we are not against the Sarakis or any other group joining our party as democracy is a game of numbers. But we must state that:

1. We reject the handing over of the party structure to Senator Saraki
2. We reject any rule that arrogates the leadership of the party in the state to his group either through the state governor or Saraki himself.
3. We reject arbitrary sharing of party offices between us and the Saraki group. 
4. The registration process and the election of party officials from ward to state executive is the only democratic process that will provide the desired confidence to all members of the party.
5. The State Harmonising Committee set up to midwife the party through registration process, ward congresses to the election of state officials must not be skewed in favour of the Saraki group. It must be composed of equal members from the legacy parties and the nPDP .
6. That the election of party officers must be free and transparent

Our party leaders may have a right to suggest that the political space is wide enough to accommodate all entrants; we want them to equally know that we have a right to demand for the guarantee of equality of opportunity and the enthronement of social mobility. It is a ruse for Alhaji Lai to suggest that both the old and new governors in the APC are equal. We wonder what that statement tends to achieve. One cannot compare successful governors with governors who are not qualified to be in their midst. 
Our fight is a civilisation fight. This is a fight for all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and fair play. Senator Saraki in PDP respected no laws and procedures. His interests were his laws. The party and government were in his pocket and everybody cringed and bowed before him. We state with all sincerity that in our party, nobody will allow for such political way of life. Times have changed. All unlucky states are not the same and every unlucky state is unlucky in its own unique way. No one person or group can be so intelligent to determine the wants or need of everybody else or determine the standard by which people live. Once again we thank you all and we hope that this time you will do justice to us in your individual reports. Happy New Year and God bless.