By Steve Oni, Ilorin.

 Contrary to insinuations that they had defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Baruten local government area of Kwara state have debunked the allegation, saying they are still loyal and committed members of the ruling party.  

 A member of the party in the area had said that the APC leaders in the area had defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on the allegations of marginalisation.

 But in a statement by a member of the APC caucus in the local government, Alhaji Idris Buko, the leaders, however, expressed gratitude of members of the party in the area to the leadership of the party in the state for giving to them what was due to them, saying, "as party faithful we say with all sense of modesty that we are not marginalised".

 Buko, the statement, said: "To set the record straight, at no time or forum was the issue of leaving APC for another party was ever listed as an issue for discussion at any meeting and at no time did the state leadership of our party invite or inform us of our contemplating such an Idea

 "However, it's pertinent to state here that the said  author of the Publication is a card  carrying member of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and it's incontrovertible that he participated in all the elections conducted as a member of PDP, the records are there

 "It's laughable for a non party member who we gathered from good authority  has been commissioned to ensure  destabilisation of our  party for a fixed price  could now come up with the theory of defection. We were therefore not surprised he went to town with concocted falsehood  and outright fallacy  in order to seek unavailable attention and relevance in APC.

 "It's on record that the APC in the last general election with the cooperation of all party  members delivered 100 Percent and that accounted for why the  National and State House of Assembly as well as Local government councils' representatives from the area   are unadulterated APC Members.

 "The Baruten chapter of our party is proud of our leaders both at the National and State levels including the Senate President, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, the Hon. Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Muhammad, His Excellency , Governor Abdul fatah Ahmed as well as the two distinguished Ambassadors in Japan and Malaysia, for their contributions to the  success and growth of our party in the state..

 "The  leadership and members of our party in Baruten while reiterating our unalloyed loyalty to APC both at the National and State levels we made  bold to say that Sanmori's unguarded claims and false allegation were borne out of frustration he suffered  in four consecutive times at the polls thus he needed to seek for attention and relevance at all costs.

 'While we are expressing our profound gratitude to the leadership of our party for giving us our due as party faithful we say with all sense of modesty that we are not marginalised, it is  in the imagination of the author who was yet to recover from the trauma suffered at the polls

 "We  therefore call on our teeming party members and supporters at home and in Diaspora to disregard Sanmori's self delusion  of getting attention  from the  party hierarchy as a dream , as we remain loyal members of our great party APC while he continues to day-dream.

 "Once more we thank our members for their unflinching support to the leadership of our great party and all government programmers both at the state and national levels.