Kwara APC reiterates commitment to peace. *decries non-invitation to security stakeholders meeting*

The All Progressives Congress (APC), Kwara State chapter has welcomed the resolution of Kwara State inter-agency consultative committee on election security to ensure peace and tranquillity in Kwara State ahead and beyond the 2015 general elections.

In a statement issued by its Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Sulyman Buhari, the APC however noted, “Whether the fact that the APC was not invited to the stakeholders meeting was a deliberate or innocent lacuna and omission, we do not know but we do know that the omission betrays the spirit of fairness and equity. It also signals to the direction of partisanship on the part of the security agencies”.

“We welcome the resolution of Kwara State inter-agency consultative committee on election security at a stakeholders meeting held recently in Ilorin to ensure peace and tranquillity in Kwara State ahead and beyond the 2015 general elections.

“To make the implementation of this resolution smooth and successful, we advise Kwara State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Garba Salihu, the State Security Service (SSS), Army, Navy, Air Force and NSCDC to carefully and professionally monitor the activities of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara State, for if the violent tendency of PDP is successfully curtailed, the security agencies would have buried violence in Kwara State.  

“This assertion is factual and accurate, and not an assertion that can be wished away as political propaganda by opposition elements. The PDP has a fertile record of political violence in Kwara State while its thugs and chieftains are at various stages of prosecution in respect to political violence. 

“Not only that PDP has been indicted in all political unrest and public disturbance cases in Kwara State since February, 2013, the PDP also supports political thuggery and violence as a policy as clearly shown in an inglorious press statement the PDP issued on 28th of August, 2014 to praise and commend PDP thugs for disrupting a Town Hall meeting of Kwara South
APC Elders at Ajase-ipo, Irepodun local government.

“However, the APC in Kwara State notes with utmost concern that a stakeholders meeting of collective responsibility on elections and security held in Kwara State without any invitation from the organisers to our great party, the APC, to participate in the deliberations while smaller parties were fully represented.

“Whether the fact that the APC was not invited to the stakeholders meeting was a deliberate or innocent lacuna and omission, we do not know but we do know that the omission betrays the spirit of fairness and equity. It also signals to the direction of partisanship on the part of the security agencies.    

“We are talking of the APC that is the governing party in Kwara state. We are talking of the APC that has 98% of all political office holders in Kwara State. We are talking of the APC that has 74% of the voting population in Kwara State. The omission is indeed regrettable.”, the statement read.