Mustapha traces Kwara APC crisis to leadership struggle among stakeholders…Gov’s refusal to attend to stomach infrastructure

A stalwart of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara state, Hon. Mashood Mustapha, has traced the crisis rocking the state’s chapter of the party to struggle among party stakeholders on who should be the party leader in the state.

Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on Friday, Mustapha a former PDP member of the House of Representatives and 2019 APC governorship aspirant, also traced the crisis to the refusal of Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq to share money to some party stakeholders and politicians.

The party stalwart, who said that some APC politicians in the state lack knowledge in dynamism of politics, added that many do not know convention of the party.

“Immediately after the primaries that produced Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq as the party candidate in the 2019 general elections, many of the stakeholders in the tendencies that formed the APC found it difficult to accord the governor as the leader. Interestingly, that’s the convention of the party. The governor becomes the leader of the party. So, I urge our people, such as Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Senator Gbemi Saraki, Professor Oba among others, to rally round the governor, support him rather than attacking him through opposition tactics. We should realize that politics should be a means to an end and not an end in itself. Some of the stakeholders are professional politicians. Distraction they are causing would not augur well for delivery of democracy dividends” he said.

Mustapha said the governor is more passionate about infrastructure development than attending to “stomach infrastructure”, scoring AbdulRazaq high in the areas of infrastructure development and prudent management of the state’s meagre resources.

Mustapha, a former aide of the former Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, said: “Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq in the last two years has done well than the past administrations which I was a part of. Governor Abdulrazaq has done well in the area of developmental projects.

“The governor is determined to fix the infrastructure that had gone bad. He’s not keen about stomach infrastructure which is the problem he has with some APC stakeholders. I want to award him a pass mark of 7 out of 10 per cent”.

Mustapha implored the aggrieved APC members to retrace their steps, urging them to join hands with the governor in developing the state.

” The stakeholders should sheathe their swords. Let us come together; if there is any issue we are not cleared about, let us ask the governor for clarification. If he makes amend, fine, if he doesn’t listen to us, then we should wait to react at the appropriate time. This is the time for governance and not politics. Let’s allow the governor to concentrate on governance”, he said.