APC membership registration: Kwara LG, ward chairmen reject exercise

Local government and ward caretaker committee chairmen of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State have rejected the ongoing membership revalidation and registration in the state.
While describing the exercise as a sham, the officials said majority of members were disallowed from registering.
The chairmen and ward executives, in Ilorin on Friday, said the registration was a disenfranchisement.
Mr Mohammed Awobimpe, the APC Chairman in Ifelodun Local  Government Area, said the whole exercise in the area was nothing to write home about.
“There is nowhere in Ifelodun where they were registering, I am from Igbaja, from my town up to Oke Ode, there were no materials for registration.
“In Oro Ago, Babalomo, Share, Agunjin, Agbeku, there was no where they were registering members. I have not registered because they did not bring any material to my polling booth.
“As I am talking to you, there is nowhere in Ifelodun LG where registration is going on.
“The state Chairman, Bashir Bolarinwa is from Agbeku and he has not revalidated his membership because no material was brought to the town. They were only writing names in note books.
“What will the people gain by saying there were no materials if materials were on ground?
“There are 193 polling units in Ifelodun, at least each of the polling units should have one booklet, but that is not the case,” Awobimpe added.
According to him, there is no material in the deputy governor’s town, Oyate, Oro-Ago, adding that nobody has registered in the town.
“There is no registration exercise in the whole of Kwara, the idea of the exercise is to mobilise many people to register as members of APC, but reverse is the case.
“They are not allowing people who want to join get registered. They are chasing people away from the party,” Awobimpe added.
He, therefore, called on the national leadership of APC to cancel the exercise in the state and bring competent people to oversee the fresh process.
The Chairman of Omupo ward, Mr Mudashiru Gbadamosi, also said that since the exercise started on February 9, no material was brought to the area.
“There is nothing like registration materials in my ward, we just saw that they brought out big notebooks where they are writing people’s names.
“I am surprised at this current exercise, they are just doing what they like, up till now; we have not seen anybody with registration materials.
“To me, we have not done any membership registration in Kwara, because this is not how the national headquarters of our party said it should be done.
“Guidelines and directive of the party is that the registration should be done in the open, in polling units across the state, but they are doing it inside private houses.
“If you see them doing anything here, it is not membership registration because they are not doing that in Ifelodun.
“The whole exercise should be cancelled and commence afresh by another committee from the national office,” Gbadamosi said.
Mr Oladele Ismail, the Chairman, Share ward I, and Vice Chairman Committee of Ward Chairmen in Ifelodun, said there was no registration in the whole of Share district.
“I visited all the polling units in Share with the Secretary of my ward to see what is going on; there is no registration going on anywhere.
“We only saw some people writing their names in exercise books which was different from the party guidelines and directives on the registration.
“The directive of the party was that the registration would take place in each polling unit, but I did not see anything like that in Share ward I,” he said.
According to him, in Babaloma which is part of share district, they were writing names in note book secretly, not in the open.
“They claimed that not all members of the party have the right to get registered or revalidate their membership; that it was those that they intend to register that they were writing down their names inside note books.
“What we were told was that the registration is for all party members and those wishing to join the party, but they are not doing this, they are just writing down names of the people in their group and take the list to Kwara Hotel to enter it into registration sheets.
“They should cancel the exercise because it is a sham and fraudulent, let us start afresh and make materials available in all the polling units,” Ismail urged.