Governor Ahmed said he decided to quit APC due to him being linked with Offa armed robbery

KWARA State's Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed has revealed that he finally decided to leave the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and join the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) because of the way he was linked with the Offa bank robbery.

On April 5 this year, Offa witnessed one of the most brutal bank robberies in Nigeria that left  33 peoples dead. Well planned, the attack was military in nature, with the hoodlums first of all attacking the town's police station, killing nine policemen, ransacking their armoury and then proceeding to attack several banks where it unleashed mayhem, killing pregnant women among others.

Given the ferocity of the attack, the police swung into action immediately, arresting dozens of the robbers and under interrogation, some of them confessed that they were originally hired by Governor Ahmed and his predecessor, the current senate president senator Bukola Saraki. It appears that they were hired as political thugs by the politicians who armed them and used them to harass opponents but the hoodlums then decided to take things further by graduating to bank robbery.

Following their arrest, the robbers were even found to have used a car belong to Senator Saraki and they were found to have been well connected to the Kwara State government. This led to the arrest of Yusuf Abdulwahab, Governor Ahmed's chief of staff, who remains in custody having been denied bail.

This week, Governor Ahmed and Senator Saraki both left the APC, along with other members of the party in Kwara State like its national publicity secretary Bolaji Abdullahi. Shedding light on why he quit, Governor Ahmed said linking him and Senator Saraki to the April 5 bank robberies in Offa was one of the reasons they both decided to dump the APC.

He accused the federal government, being led by President Muhammadu Buhari, of engaging in political persecution and victimisation of the party’s leadership in Kwara State. According to Governor Ahmed some party leaders in the state were also guilty of  nursing private and personal agendas.

Governor Ahmed said: “Most of the political appointments at the federal level were done without any input or consideration from the state party stakeholders and in flagrant neglect of established principles of federal character. The problem became compounded with ceaseless litigations and harassment of me and the senate president with the insinuation of complicity in the condemnable Offa robberies.

“Government House is the seat of government of the people and the people have come here to tell us their views on what they want us to do. I want to assure you, like I have always said, your voice is our voice."

Following the robbery, the inspector-general of police Ibrahim Idris, asked Senator Saraki to report to police headquarters for questioning after some of the arrested robbers said he was their sponsor. One of the robbers Ayoade Akinnibosun, for instance, said he worked as a political thug for Senator Saraki in Kwara South, Kwara North and Kwara Central Senatorial Districts, while he was in the PDP.

He explained that the gang assisted the senate president to disrupt elections at polling centres his party could not win, adding that he had been working for Senator Saraki since he was the Kwara State governor. Five gang leaders further confessed during investigation that they are political thugs under the name Youth Liberation Movement aka Good Boys and confessed to have been sponsored with firearms, money and operational vehicles by Senator Bukola Saraki and Governor Ahmed.