‘Kwara gets over N1trillion in 16 years yet no development – defecting PDP Chairman

By Adedeji Joseph, Ilorin
Former PDP Chairman in Kwara, Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo who last week defected to the APC has said he cannot co-habit in the same party with Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki.
For this reason he said, over 85 percent of his members in the PDP have moved with him into the APC to continue the struggle of freeing Kwara State from a enslavement.
Oyedepo made this known while fielding questions from journalists on on his arrival from Abuja where he had gone to perfect his defection and those of his supporters.
“For instance, successive governments forced on the state since 2003 had collected about N1tr from the federation account as allocations and yet, there is no corresponding development”, he declared.
According to him, only four members of his executive in the PDP out of 31 members stayed back while the rest with their members in the sixteen Local Government Areas of the state followed him to APC.
The four executive members who remained in their former party he said, were the Deputy Chairman, Women Leader, Youth Leader and the Treasurer.
He added that the 27 PDP executive members who moved with him to the APC were those who stood for the yearning of the people of Kwara state to actualize a determination to end enslavement that lasted decades.
He lamented that successive governments put in place for over sixteen years in the state had particularly succeeded in making life miserable for the people.
Disclosing details of his political pilgrimage to Abuja to journalists, Oyedepo said he met with the APC Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and the national leader, Senator Bola Ahmed Timubu who promiseda level playing ground for everybody in the party.
He said his members and those they met in the APC were promised to  be fully integrated adding that congresses would soon be held to elect party executive from wards to state levels.
“All what we have been doing in PDP will be transferred to the APC, all our radio programmes are now APC programmes to continue to create awareness for the people,” he said.
Oyedepo said there was no way he could work with Dr Bukola Saraki in the same political party and that explained also why he left PDP when the Senate President left APC to join PDP.
“A government that has been in power for over 16 years but unable to provide good governance since 2003 is darkness.
“If people are saying we have bad government in Nigeria, I always tell them that Kwara is a double jeopardy. We are complaining about Kwara. The only issue in Kwara is Saraki,” he added.
Oyedepo declared that he has an agenda for the people of Kwara and that he only needed a free platform to actualize the agenda which he said was to liberate the state from the yolk of godfatherism and underdevelopment.
“Our struggle is a mass movement that transcends political party, we are looking for party members, we are looking for electorates to actualize the agenda,” he said.