Kwara APC faction rejects Gov Abdulrazaq’s sister as Registration Appeal Committee member

A faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State has rejected the inclusion of Senator Khairat Gwadabe, elder sister of Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, in the 61-member APC National Revalidation/Registration Appeal Committee set up earlier this week by the Governor Mai Mala Buni – led National Caretaker Committee of the party.

The group, known as Integrity Group within Kwara APC, in a statement signed by Comrade Abdul-Rahoof Bello and titled “We reject Senator Khairat Gwadabe’s Appointment’,’ further declared the appointment as unacceptable.

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According to the group, Gwadabe’s appointment was fraught with illogicalities, nepotism and smacked of assaults on democratic values, given her antecedence in Kwara politics.

It, however, called on the Chairman of APC National Caretaker Committee to look into the matter with a view to dispensing justice which it said was the only antidote that would bring lasting peace to the party in Kwara State.

It said: “If the objective of the 61-member Appeal Committee was to rectify the injustice arose from the wishy-washy Membership Revalidation/Registration exercise in Kwara State, then, Hajia Khairat Gwadabe was a misfit and the noble mission of the committee stands defeated on arrival.

“Hers was a tragedy of personification of injustice to Kwara APC members.

“To whom shall we report when justice lies in the hands that had wronged”, the group said, adding, “Here was a governor’s sister who worked in tandem with Senator Dan Boy’s Committee to commit all sorts of atrocities and impunities against the party’s interest in Kwara state.”

The group maintained that: “With Senator Gwadabe, the Revalidation/Registration exercise remains inchoate in Kwara state as over 70 percent of legacy members of the party were deliberately marginalized and disenfranchised for the 2023 agenda.

“The appointment of governor Abdulrazaq’s sister was a subterfuge by a family to reincarnate the odious godfather politics already rejected by Kwarans with the popular votes given to our party (APC) in 2019 elections.

“As far as APC Constitution allows us, if the National Caretaker Committee feels convinced that it is only governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq and his family members alone it could work with, then we need no soothsayer to predict the party is facing the prospect of self-immolation in Kwara state.”

But reacting to the issue, the APC Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Folaranmi Aro, said there was nothing special in the appointment of Senator Gwadabe as a member of the Registration Appeal Committee.

“Senator Gwadabe is a member of the party and she has been a member of the reconciliation committee of the party which is no more in place.

“I wonder what is generating a fury now. If they did not reject her first appointment, why are they raising issues on her second appointment,” he said.