PDP FACTION FAULTS KWARA CONGRESS

By NBF News

A FACTION of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara State has faulted Tuesday's ward delegate congresses of the party across the state.

The group, Foundation for Better Nigeria (FBN), alleged that there were no congresses in all the wards within the Kwara Central Senatorial District as 'a cabal only sat at a corner and hand-picked all the delegates from the district'.

According to leader of the FBN, Captain Shadrack Popoola, yesterday at a media briefing in Ilorin, the development if left un-redressed, could mar the chances of the PDP in forthcoming polls in the state.

But reacting to the development, the state Chairman of the PDP, Yusuf Ayedun, described the FBN allegation as 'baseless and frivolous'.

Ayedun, while speaking with The Guardian said the results of the congresses given him showed that credible elections were held in all wards across the state.

Popoola, who said the group had since lodged a complaint on the development with the national executive of the party, stressed that 'the shabby' conduct of the congresses in the district was a direct negation of President Goodluck Jonathan's quest to make votes count in the 2011 polls.

He noted: 'In many parts of the state, our teeming party members went out en masse to elect delegates of their choice but were totally disappointed at the respective party ward congress venues with what they saw and the outcome of the ward congresses.

'In many wards in the state, there were no ward congresses at all as some agents from a higher authority made sure they just wrote names and party members who had the intention of electing delegates were completely shocked and disappointed. This happened at the Kwara Central Senatorial District'.

Popoola urged the national executive of the PDP 'to intervene in the Kwara madness and electoral fraud by accepting the true result of the delegates in areas where real elections were conducted and also mollify all the imposed delegates of the cabal. At present, Kwara people are tired of imposition of candidates on them'.

Going by the existing 193 wards across the state, a total of 579 delegates were expected to have emerged from the state after the congresses. Three delegates were expected from each of the wards.