Kwara APC elders blasts Lai Mohammed

Elders of the Kwara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have lambasted Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, for allegedly insulting and denigrating the state Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.

The party elders under the auspices of ‘Kwara APC Elders Caucus’, while reacting to recent comments made by the Minister about the governor in an interview, took exception to it and decided to call him to order.

At a press conference held in Ilorin, the state capital on Monday, the Caucus’ spokesperson, Nurudeen Mohammed, said:

“For Lai Mohammed to denigrate Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq’s political status in Kwara State and his role in the funding of the 2019 electioneering campaigns and election proper is most unfortunate.”

Mohammed, a former Nigerian Ambassador to Malaysia, who was supported at the press conference by other caucus leaders including Kunle Sulyman, Senator Mohammed Ahmed, Chief Wole Oke and Chief James Ayeni, noted that the Minister was being immature by closing the door for reconciliation among members of the party.

The former ambassador claimed that next to nothing was known about the Minister in Kwara politics prior to 2002 when he surfaced in the state, “apparently exported to the state from Lagos to come and take over governance just as his colleagues in other Yoruba states, who have, before then, spent all their years in Lagos where they cut their political teeth and had held one political office or the other.”

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“Of all his (Minister) Lagos colleagues hitherto sent out from Lagos to contest governorship election in the current Republic, it’s only Lai Mohammed who has failed to win in his state where he contested in 2003.

“The question one would like to ask is why he failed in the election. The answer should be obvious. Lai Mohammed was never seen in Kwara in the Second Republic politics nor was he ever heard of in the political landscape of Kwara state politics of the Third Republic.

“He was an unknown quantity in those days. He has all along been a de facto Lagosian rather than being a Kwaran.

“Therefore, he has no locus standi to insult and denigrate the Governor who has done a lot for the state. We will not fold our arms and allow Lai Mohammed to destroy Kwara State for his selfish motives,” the Caucus said.

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