‘Nasty’, ‘Unpleasant’ Experience That Made Me Defect To PDP- Kwara YPP Assembly Candidate
Okuta-Yashikira YPP House of Assembly candidate, Mr. Muktar Kilishi, who announced the decision to forfeit his candidacy during the weekend, had also attended the campaign rally held by the PDP where he was received into the party along with others by former Senate President, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki.
Okuta-Yashikira state constituency is in Baruten local government, Kwara state.
Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq’s former Senior Special Assistant on Poverty Alleviation, Mr. Muhammed Abubakar Sheko and some executive members of APC in Shiya-Boriya Ward including Mr. Idris Sanni Muhammed, Mr. Mahmud Abdullahi and Mr. Ibrahim Abdullahi Bata were among those who also declared that they have left the APC for the PDP during the rally.
Among attendees of the rally were the state PDP Chairman, Alhaji Babatunde Mohammed, the party’s guber candidate, Alhaji Shuaib Abdulahi Yaman, Kwara North senate candidate, Alhaji Adamu Bawa, Hon Zakari Mohammed among others.
In a telephone interview with Team@orientactualmags.com on Sunday night, Mr. Muktar Kilishi, who disclosed that he will take necessary steps to formally end his membership of YPP and the forfeiture of his candidacy today, Tuesday, 7 February 2023, added that the nasty and unpleasant experience he had in the YPP made it unavoidable for him to quit the party.
The former House of Assembly candidate said he had taken necessary steps to make the YPP become popular in the local government and had been committed and loyal to the party.
‘I joined the Young Progressive Party, YPP, in June last year and because I do show commitment and loyalty to any party I belong to, I visited almost all the villages and towns in my constituency to make the party become popular.
There are 5 wards in my constituency and there are 11 wards in Baruten local government and my ward ; Gurei Guasoro has the highest number of voters in the local government. It has 37 polling units’ he said.
Asked why he had to end his membership of the YPP and forfeit his candidacy, Kilishi said he had to leave the party to prevent an attempt to harm his reputation.
‘The YPP at the state level has not been fair to us in my local government. The gubernatorial candidate has also caused me more than enough embarrassment and he has almost harmed my reputation if not that my people have trust in me.
Ahead of the sallah last year , he promised to send sallah package to us and I told my people about this, but they were made to wait endlessly and they got nothing ,that was not all, he said I should give him the names of 30 people per ward for an empowerment programme and I also did but nothing was done since last year.
I do attend party meetings in Ilorin and I will sponsor my trip there was no support from anyone and I never complained but promises made to our people which were not fulfilled cannot be tolerated.
Also, the guber candidate was in Baruten local government to campaign and urge our people to vote for him and I was the one who organized everything. We welcomed the campaign team in Ilesha Baruba and they later slept in Gurei and I was the one that organized all these.
At each of the places the guber candidate visited , he promised to send N100,000 to each of them but nothing was done since he left Baruten local government, he was not picking up my calls and he didn’t respond to my messages.
When the campaign team visited Baruten local government, I spent all I had , actually it was when I complained to Hon Bolu ,who is the Deputy Governorship candidate, that he gave me N2,000.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was what the guber candidate said during the meeting we held in Ilorin where I explained my situation to him and told him that I will need financial support from him and I was surprised when he told me directly that he is a candidate like myself and will only carry his own burden, he also accused the Baruten people of usually sitting on the fence. Making such a comment about my people was unfair and others who were there weren’t happy about this too.
I’m an important person in my constituency and I won’t allow anyone to treat me like that and that was why we took a decision to leave the party’ he added.
Was there any special reason for choosing PDP as his new party? ‘Yes’ he quipped.
‘After taking a decision to leave the YPP, I sat down with my people and we deliberated on what should be our next course of action and you know that in Baruten local government, the PDP is now more popular than other parties, we also have Hon Bio Ibrahim and Hon Zakari Muhammed there but it is not only about that.
We debated the issue and it was eventually resolved that we should go for a party that has a good future in the local government and majority of the people chose PDP and we have all left YPP for PDP’ he said- Team@orientactualmags.com
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