Kwara PDP Leaders Challenge DG NILDS to Show Proof of Saraki as APC Member

• Decries purported assault on women protesters against insecurity

Hammed Shittu in Ilorin

Leaders of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara State, yesterday, challenged Director-General, National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Professor Olarewaju Sulaiman, to bring out proof that PDP leader and former Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, was a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Sulaiman, an APC governorship aspirant in the state, recently alleged on radio programme in Ilorin that the former senate president was a member of APC in Abuja and a leader of PDP in Kwara State.

Following Sulaiman’s comment, leaders and members of PDP had raised objections.

In a chat with newsmen in Ilorin shortly after featuring on a radio programme, PDP’s Director of Planning and Strategy, Mallam Ibrahim Otukoko, said Saraki re-mained a committed and recognised leader of PDP in Kwara State and nationally.

Otukoko described as false and misleading the claim credited to Suleiman, saying, “Saraki’s political standing within the PDP remains intact and unquestionable.” He said attempts to link Saraki with APC were driven by personal interests rather than facts.

Meanwhile, PDP in Kwara State decried alleged assault by people suspected to be thugs on women from Ifelodun Local Government Area of the state who staged a peaceful protest over the increasing rate of banditry and kidnapping in the local government.

Some women from Oke Ode, Agbeku, Babanla, Adanlatowns in Ifelodun Local Government Area, last week, staged a peaceful protest in Ilorin to call on the state government to redouble its effort and come to their aid over the incessant attacks by bandits and kidnappers.

The protesters said many of them had become sudden widows due to the menace. They called on the state government to rescue them from the attackers.

But the protest was marred by attack by suspected thugs who assaulted the women with canes to drive them away, an action that caused controversy among stakeholders in the state.

PDP, in a statement, decried the attacks.

The statement signed by State Publicity Secretary of the party, Hon. Olusegun Adewara, said, “We condemn in the strongest terms the brutal, inhumane, and utterly disgraceful assault unleashed on helpless women and children who staged a peaceful protest at the Kwara State Government House in Ilorin over the worsening insecurity in their communities.”