The “Integrity Group’’ in Kwara APC on Thursday rejected the inclusion of Sen. Khairat Gwadabe in the 61-member National Registration/Revalidation Appeals Committee of the party.
The group said in a statement signed by its Director, Media and Publicity, Abdul-Rahoof Bello that its rejection was partly because Hajia Khairat Gwadabe is the Kwara governor’s elder sister.
He said the appointment of the governor’s elder sister into the committee “was fraught with illogicality, nepotistic and smacked of assaults on democratic values, given her antecedence in Kwara politics’’.
He described the governor’s elder sister as unfit for the appointment as member of the membership registration/revalidation committee.
“If the objective of the 61-member Appeals Committee is to rectify the injustice that arose from the wishy-washy Membership Revalidation/Registration exercise in Kwara, then, Hajia Khairat Gwadabe is unfit.
“The noble mission of the committee stands defeated on arrival. Hers is a tragedy of personification of injustice to Kwara APC members,” Bello stated.
According to him, “the APC Integrity Group wondered: “to whom shall we report when injustice lies in the hands that had wronged?
“Here was a governor’s sister who worked in tandem with the Registration/Revalidation committee to commit all sorts of atrocities and impunities that were against the party’s interest in Kwara.
“With Sen. Gwadabe, the Revalidation/Registration exercise remains inchoate in Kwara as over 70 per cent of legal members of the party were deliberately marginalised and disenfranchised for 2023 agenda.
“On good authority, the appointment of Gov. 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 the 2019 elections.’’
The statement warned that if the party’s national caretaker committee was convinced that it was only the governor and his family that it could work with, then APC was working toward self-destruction in Kwara.
“As far as the APC Constitution allows us, if the national caretaker committee feels convinced that it is only Gov. 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.
“No civilised and responsible group of people would accept such ‘empress’, lustful of power, on that appeal, to sustain absurdity and travesty of justice to the decent members of APC in Kwara.
“This could be likened to allowing a judge to sit in his/her own case.’’ Bello stated.
The group called on the APC National Caretaker Committee to look into the matter with a view of dispensing justice; the only antidote for lasting peace in Kwara APC.
Reacting to the statement, Kwara APC Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Tajudeen Aro, said the former senator was eminently qualified to serve in the committee.
He said there was no basis for anybody to reject the appointment of Mrs Gwadabe to serve on the committee because she was a strong party woman.
According to Aro, Sen. Gwadabe has served in the Reconciliation Committee of the party and nobody raised any eyebrow.
“Notwithstanding the fact that her brother is the governor of the state, Sen. Khairat Gwadabe has earlier been a member of the National Reconciliation Committee, nobody raised any eyebrow then, why now?’’ he asked. (NAN)
