Chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kogi State has called on President Muhammadu Buhari not to nominate or appoint Hon. James Faleke as Minister from the state as such move will bring serious crisis to the party in the state.
This was contained in a statement jointly signed and issued by the leaders of the party from Kogi West, Alhaji Suleiman Ejibunu and Chief Richard Asaje, which copy was made available to journalists yesterday in Lokoja.
According to the statement, the case in question was the case of the state ministerial slot as it was claimed in some quarters that Faleke, a serving member of Federal House of Representative representing Lagos State, who lost power in the state will fill the vacant position of state ministerial slot.
“If at all Faleke and his godfather, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, deserve any post, it is not the ministerial slot of Kogi State in order to avoid serious crisis in the state APC as such move may lead to exit of prominent, loyal and committed members of the party while also aggravating the fractionalisation of the party along many divides.
“We are also unequivocally resolute to stop Tinubu’s expansion into the state or any state in the North-central; we are determined to push out all his consults from the state in 2018/2019. It is a task that must be done through all legal/political means. They have failed and they will continue to fail,” the statement noted.
“Faleke, representing Lagos State in the National Assembly was known to Kogi State APC only during the governorship struggle when “Tinubu imposed him on the state APC as the deputy governorship candidate to late Prince Abubakar Audu.
“This generated a lot of discomfort to the founding member of APC who built the party and fought the then sitting government in all national election and won. However, we swallow the pains to fight and win the governorship election in the state.
“Faleke took the party to court up to Supreme Court and lost while some leaders have remain from begging to support and build APC in the state, if those leaders’ efforts are left to this ugly power play with humiliation of this nature, what type of party and country are we building? APC asked.
APC added that party reconciliation was propose as Faleke rejected any form of reconciliation with the state Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, at one-year anniversary prayer for late Audu at Ogbonicha confirming his determination to continue to fight APC.
“Giving him such an appointment will amount to providing him fuel to fire up the disintegration of APC in the state. Faleke alongside Hon. Buba Jibril in the West Senatorial Area of Kogi State have formed illegal party structures and lay claim to illegal stakeholder structure for which a petition is already before the national leadership of the party on Jibril,” the party leaders added.