By Ade Joseph
The forthcoming national convention of the All Progressives Congress (APC) may be an avenue to wash its dirty linen in the open, Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, a chieftain of the party has said.
Speaking in Ilorin, the Kwara State over the weekend, Baraje expressed concerns over the goings on in the APC adding that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the days of President Goodluck Jonathan never had such internal wrangling as evident today in the APC.
To him, the path being toed by leaders of the APC are worse than what obtained in the PDP of old which to him was a pointer to a drift to an abyss.
He said the letter recently written by the old New PDP (nPDP) members to President Mohammadu Buhari and indeed the APC leadership still subsists pointing out that the group is made up of men and women who cannot be pushed aside.
According to him, the resignation of Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, the nPDP secretary and former governor of Osun state, was a sign to what might happen if members were not able to convince their followers about the need to remain in the APC.
Meanwhile, Baraje said nPDP members would not immediately pull out of the APC if the party fails to meet their demands like they did in the PDP but would still go ahead and meet with several leaders across the country to stop what he termed as impunity within the party.
“The last time we met here (press chat in Baraje’s house) in 2016 I told you that the way the APC was going, we were on the road to perdition. If you look at the letter we wrote we never said we gave ultimatum but that we advised them; we hinted the party because of the ongoing primaries of the party.
“Now the party has invited us exactly on the seventh day of the letter and they wanted us to meet that same day but because we were speaking for several leaders across the country we told them we couldn’t meet that same day so now they have scheduled a meeting for Monday (21st May, 2018) anytime from 2pm”
He dismissed the opposition of the group led by Senator Abdullahi Adamu to the petition by the nPDP, saying the nPDP is such a large group that it cannot but have some black legs.
“We have travelled a long way with the APC and now we are seeing things worse in APC than in PDP. If we are leaders worth the name we should be bold enough to speak about it”, he said.
