Kwara State PDP chairman says Saraki and Governor Ahmed are not welcome into the party

SENATE president Senator Bukola Saraki could be facing an uncertain future after the chairman of the Kwara State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chief Iyiola Oyedepo said he would find it hard to work with him and Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed.

On Tuesday morning, about 15 APC senators left the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), with the bulk of them joining the PDP, in a move said to have been masterminded by Senator Saraki. Also, in the House of Representatives, 37 members left the APC for the PDP as did governors Samuel Ortom and Aminu Tambuwal of Benue and Sokoto states.

Although Senator Saraki himself is yet to decamp from the APC and declare for the PDP, the move is widely anticipated in political circles. When he joins the PDP, Senator Saraki is expected to bring along with him incumbent Kwara State Governor Ahmed, his successor and political protégé.

However, Chief Oyedepo has declared that he cannot work with the incoming defectors, especially Senator Saraki and Governor Ahmed. Two senators, Shaaba Lafiag, representing Kwara North and Rafiu Ibrahim, representing Kwara South, as well as the six members of the House of Representatives from the state were among federal legislators who defected from the APC.

Chief Oyedepo, who spoke on the development on a radio programme in Ilorin, the state capital, said the national leadership of the PDP set up a committee to interface between his group and the defectors. He added that the first meeting is slated for next week and blamed the party’s national leadership for being insensitive to the political configuration in Kwara State and allowing themselves to be swayed by the funding capacity of the defectors.

 “If we agree to work with them just imagine myself and Governor AbdulFattah Ahmed Maigida standing on the same rostrum, pledging to do things for the people. It will be a shame as many people will look at me and wonder what has happened.

"So, it is better not to be in politics again. Instead of a dog being the treasurer for the lion, it is better for both to part ways and go on their separate hunting game," Chief Oyedepo added.

He pointed out that they have not sat down with Senator Saraki and Governor Ahmed, even though he has heard several rumours that he has met with them and they have offered him juicy positions. According to Chief Oyedepo, despite Senator Saraki's humongous wealth, he does not yet have what it takes to buy him.

Chief Oyedepo added: "He cannot ever buy me because he cannot buy my integrity. If my bank account is not fat, my integrity account is very fat.

"They have not met with us but our national body said they have set up a committee to meet with the two sides next week and when that meeting comes up, we are going to tell the national body that we cannot accept the formula they have put down which is 60:40 i.e 60% for a state defecting with the governor and 40% for the existing PDP members. If they said what of 50:50, or 40:60 or 30:70 or even 10:90, we shall not accept, so we will tell our national body to choose between us and them and I know that they will not choose us because we don’t have money but we are not worried."

He lamented the fact that leadership in Nigeria is the conspiracy of the elite to punish the downtrodden, stressing that when they gave them the party, they inherited nothing and so whatever you see in the PDP today is the product of their efforts. Chief Oyedepo is author of the book Shonga and the Looting of Kwara State Treasury in which he wrote an  incisive and revelatory account of how Senator Saraki, a former governor in collaboration with the rejected white Zimbabwe farmers ruined a thriving farming culture and thus manoeuvred the state into a debt trap.