Kwara APC leader promises level playing field

FORMER Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman in Kwara state, Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo, who defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) recently, has promised a level playing ground.

Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on his arrival to Ilorin, Kwara state capital, at the weekend after meeting with APC leaders in Abuja, Oyedepo said that his people and the members they met in APC would be fully integrated, adding that congresses would soon be held to elect party executives from ward to state levels.

“All that we have been doing in PDP will be transferred to the APC. All our radio programmes are now APC programmes and would to continue to create awareness among the people”, he said.

He also said that there was no way he could work with APC defectors from the Saraki political structure in the same political party, adding that when the people left PDP to join APC in 2014, he had to leave the party for PDP.

He said that in all the weekly radio programmes he had featured in, there was never a time that he attacked President Muhammadu Buhari, adding that he only laid emphasis on personalities in Kwara state government.

Oyedepo said that when he met with PDP leadership in Abuja, they insisted that he should concede 60 per cent of all structures in the state to Senator Saraki because he was bringing in a governor, two senators, six members of the House of Representatives and 24 members of the House of Assembly that would also be given automatic ticket.

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“If all these were given automatic tickets to contest 2019 elections, what will then become our lot that has been fighting the cause since 2015?

“Even if we are given all the slots, we still don’t want them because we won’t be able to explain our action to the people of the state.

Oyedepo also said that he has an agenda for the people of Kwara state and was only looking for a platform to actualise the agenda which he said was to liberate the state from the yolk of godfatherism and underdevelopment.

According to him, about 15 other political parties are with him, adding that they had promised to work with him in APC.

“Our struggle is a mass movement that has transcended political party, we are looking for party members, we are looking for the electorate to actualise the agenda,” he said.