By Wole Adedeji, Ilorin
Not less than 158 aspirants from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State are jostling for the 24 seats in the State House of Assembly, come 2027.
Sources said some current members form part of the persons seeking to be in the House for a second mandate.
While addressing the aspirants in Ilorin, the state capital the APC Screening Committee from Abuja, led by Prof Success Musa however assured all the aspirants of impartiality and transparency.
Prof. Musa dispelled the rumours said to peddled by the opposition that the All Progressives Congress was pushing hard to turn the country into one party state.
He had said: “When I asked the Secretary this morning, he told me that 158 aspirants obtained forms for the state House of Assembly alone. That is democracy and it is what APC represents.
“All the aspirants will be screened. We don’t want what happened in Bayelsa state, which is very recent in our mind to happen to any of you.
“In case you have forgotten, in Bayelsa we won our election and when the winner was rehearsing to take over on the day of his inauguration, unfortunately, the Supreme Court delivered a judgement and our collective mandate and collective suffering were handed over to the present governor.
“But we are happy now he is back to our fold but he brought back our mandate late.
The APC national leadership said I should appeal to you that after the screening, the losers should support the winners.
It is not possible for 158 aspirants to be members of the state House of Assembly that has only 24 seats. Few of you will emerge winners he said.
“APC is a large family, that is why the opposition is accusing APC of wanting to turn Nigeria into a one-party system. There is no way President Bola Tinubu or APC leadership will promote one party system.”
Earlier, the Kwada State Chairman of APC Chair in the state Prince Sunday Fagbemi said the team “is here basically to conduct screening of all of you (aspirants) to ensure that every of your papers is correct.
“We are going into elections. We don’t want to waste our efforts voting you in and some body from outside will come and detect one fault or the other in your documents.
“APC is a well organised party that has processes of doing things. After this screening, the screening appeal committee which will be here latest today (Tuesday) to take over to deal with any complaints arising from the screening.”