Politics
I’ll do anything to free Lagos from Tinubu’s vice grip – Jandor
Olajide Adediran, Lagos State governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in in the March 11 election, has vowed not only to end what he described as the 24-year monopoly of former governor of the state, Bola Tinubu, but to commence the process of real development of the state by doing things differently.
“We will come in and do things differently. The problem of Lagos is that we have one head thinking for the state of Lagos for the past 24 years,” Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, said on Sunrise Daily a breakfast programme of Channels Television, on Thursday.
The PDP governorship candidate in Lagos also accused Tinubu, the 2023 presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) of removing “performing governors” in the state.
Jandor said though former governor Babatunde Fashola survived an attempt to remove him in 2011 and returned for second term, his successor, Akinwunmi Ambode couldn’t survive a plot that saw him removed after a single term in 2019.
He promised to decentralise developments across the 20 local government areas of the state if elected in the forthcoming polls.
“In our very first year in office, we will do a whole lot across Lagos. We need to decentralise development. Everybody comes to the centre for greener pastures but if you give the development where they are, they will actually stay there.
“We will do a whole lot because we will be coming in as independent government; the one not tied to the apron string of anybody and that will allow us to make Lagos wealth that we only hear now work for Lagos,” he said.
Jandor lamented what he described as hegemony and monopoly of the state by Tinubu, who was Lagos governor after Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999.
“The problem is this monopoly that we need to break. If we have a governor that is independent, we won’t have this problem and that is what we represent,” he said.
Jandor also slammed the incumbent governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu over “failure” to allegedly utilise the resources of the state to improve the education, health and transport sectors.
“A government with these resources and the statistics still not speaking to the resources shows failure and the reason is not farfetched; there is a monopoly that we need to break and allow fresh ideas and new thinking. Until we do this, we will continue to have the same report and this cosmetic of people saying they are working,” he said.
In December 2021, Jandor, the leader of the Lagos4Lagos movement within the APC in Lagos dumped the ruling party with his followers and was received into the PDP by former Senate President, Bukola Saraki. He would later get the PDP governorship ticket in the state.
Where Is Ambode?
Since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, Ambode is the only former governor of Lagos who was in office for a single term. Tinubu was governor between 1999 and 2007 before he handed over to Fashola, who is now the Minister of Works and Housing, was in office as governor from 2007 to 2015.
Ambode took over in 2015 but lost his re-election at the primary level in the 2019 electioneering process due to intra-party squabbles as APC strongman in Lagos (Tinubu) was reported to have favoured Sanwo-Olu.
Sanwo-Olu clinched the party’s ticket and won the 2019 governorship election and has again secured APC’s ticket for his re-election in the 2023 polls.
Since he ended his single term in 2019, Ambode has not been seen at political or social functions with his predecessors – Tinubu and Fashola. He has also not been seen at events with the incumbent governor.
The former governor has also been reticent at the few times he was pictured at APC events at the national level like in May 2021 when he was appointed the deputy chairman of the South-West sub-committee of the Contact and Strategy Committee of the ruling party.
There were reports that Ambode would contest the party’s governorship ticket with Sanwo-Olu at the primary in May 2022. Rather, his ally, Wale Oluwo, threw his hat in the ring but lost to Sanwo-Olu.
Unlike Fashola and Sanwo-Olu, Ambode has not publicly endorsed Tinubu’s 2023 presidential ambition and has not been seen at any political event linked with Tinubu’s aspiration for Aso Rock but the weeks ahead of the February 25 presidential poll are still much very pregnant.
A legal tussle is in the offing to determine the fate of the June 20 by-election to fill the vacancy in the Enugu North senatorial district at the National Assembly, following the decision of the Labour Party (LP) to challenge the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to exclude it from participating.
INEC had approved the participation of only three political parties for the exercise to fill the vacant seat left by Okey Ezea, who died last year, to the exclusion of scores of others including the LP under whose platform the former Senator won the seat in 2023.
Ken Asogwa, spokesman of the party, who gave the update on the next line of action, said LP had already approached the Federal High Court, Abuja, to challenge the decision on the ground of wrongful exclusion, saying that the party was deeply disturbed over INEC’s action, especially the reason it gave for it.
Asogwa, who conveyed the decision through a statement on Monday, wondered how its candidate would made to pay for the ineptitude of INEC itself, which failed to carry out its constitutional responsibility.
Stressing that the party complied with all statutory requirements and procedural guidelines, but was still denied access to upload the particulars of its candidate on INEC’s nomination portal, the statement, added: “Up until the close of the submission window on June 2, the party made several efforts, including formal protests and correspondences to the commission, seeking the resolution of the issue, but these efforts yielded no positive result
“The party fulfilled every legal and administrative obligation required under the Electoral Act and INEC’s extant regulations in the nomination of its candidate. Labour Party finds it difficult to understand the basis upon which it had been excluded from an election in which it had a legitimate and undeniable stake.
“It is both disturbing and deeply concerning that the head of Elections and Party Monitoring (EPM) in Enugu State reportedly justified his refusal to transmit the report of the Labour Party’s primary election on the ground that he was out of town on the day the exercise was conducted.
“This excuse is untenable and raises serious questions about the discharge of official responsibilities. Labour Party cannot be made to suffer the consequences of an official’s absence, negligence, incompetence or dereliction of duty.
“Electoral processes and the constitutional rights of political parties cannot be subjected to the convenience or personal circumstances of individual officers. If the officer was unavailable, it is incumbent upon him or INEC in Enugu to ensure that appropriate arrangements were made for the monitoring and reporting of the exercise.
“INEC should not be penalising a political party that duly complied with all statutory requirements. The Electoral Act only requires political parties to duly notify INEC of their primaries. The party complied fully with this statutory requirement. The legality and validity of the exercise cannot be vitiated by INEC’s absence, as neither the Electoral Act nor the commission’s regulation made its physical presence a mandatory condition for the conduct of a party primary election.”
Expressing confidence in Joash Amupitan, INEC Chairman to do the right thing, he however called on the commission investigate the actions taken by its staff members in Enugu and take decisive action against anyone found culpable.
His words: “Electoral institutions derive their legitimacy from public trust and every effort must be made to protect the integrity of the electoral process. It would amount to a grave injustice for Labour Party to be denied the opportunity of presenting a candidate in an election convened to fill a vacancy created by the death of one of its serving senators.
“Such an outcome would not only undermine the rights of the party and its supporters but it tends to diminish the democratic choices available to the people of Enugu North senatorial district in the coming by-election.
“As the party places its confidence in the impartiality and wisdom of the Nigerian judiciary, it urges all its members and supporters in Enugu North and across the country to remain calm while the matter is being determined by the courts.”
A conciliatory Atiku Abubakar, in magnanimity with victory, extended the olive branch to Rotimi Amaechi and Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, the pair he defeated on Wednesday night to clinch the ticket of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for next year’s presidential election.
He appealed to both men never to abandon the party ahead of the election, scheduled for January 2027, but to close ranks to ensure victory for both party, Nigeria as a country and the people currently under the bondage of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Extending the olive branch shortly after being handed the party flag, officially declaring him as the candidate, he said: “I therefore appeal to all those who feel aggrieved to come back to our party and close ranks with the rest of us. In particular, I invite Chief Rotimi Anechi and Alhaji Muhammad Hayatu-Deen to join me in this fight to save our democracy and our country.
“As I said previously, there are no winners and no losers. Our people look up to us for leadership and I am ready to lead,” he said.
He added that he would work with other aspirants and stakeholders to build the party ahead of the general election.
“I shall work with you all to continue to build our party. I will campaign with you and if Nigeria’s leaders demand it, govern with you to build a country that works for all of us.”
The appeal is coming hours after both Amaechi, former Governor of Rivers State and former Minister of Transportation and Hayatu-Deen, former Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), rejected the result, even before it was announced, citing what they described as manipulation of the voting process, with Hayatu-Deen saying he would not attend the announcement of the result.
Regardless, Atiku, Nigeria’s former Vice President between 1999 and 2007, said he truly humbled and excited to lead the party into the next elections, adding that he was particularly excited by the party’s demonstration of internal democracy despite the position of naysayers.
Hear him: “I must state at this juncture that this is not the time to celebrate. No one was defeated because we are one party and we all need to recognise the fierce urgency of the moment.
“Therefore, we have to unite, as we pledged before this process, to work to pull our country and our people out of the destructive grip of a corrupt, incompetent and polarising APC government.
“I thank the primary elections Committee for organising peaceful, free, fair and transparent primaries. I thank the various leadership organs of our party, the various stakeholders, and volunteers for their hard work and dedication and all our party members and supporters for their efforts, patience and conduct during the process.
“With the primaries behind us, the real hard work is about to begin. We have to prepare to campaign hard to win the next general elections in order to begin the difficult process of rescuing our country and its long-suffering people from this government.”
“I will not be attending the announcement of the ADC Presidential Election Results today. I am concerned by reports from across the country of widespread vote rigging, some of which I myself observed, and will therefore be taking advice on my next steps.”
These were the exact words of Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, one of the presidential aspirants of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), with which he cast a slur on the ongoing presidential primaries of the party, hinging his position on reports of fraud trailing the exercise.
Hayatu-Deen, a second timer in the search for the nation’s number one job, ran against Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former Vice President and Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, former Minister of Transportation.
In a statement on his assessment of the exercise which began on Monday, the renowned economist Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), used his X platform to convey his dissatisfaction with the process.
The ADC which said the collation for the exercise would take place in Abuja had urged aspirants, party leaders, delegates, and members to conduct themselves peacefully and uphold party unity.
Bolaji Abdullahi, its spokesman, who described the exercise as a defining moment for both the ADC and Nigerians seeking a credible political alternative, maintained that it remained committed to internal democracy and a transparent leadership selection process.
“The ADC remains proud to stand today as the only truly democratic party in Nigeria because it is the only political party whose choice of presidential candidate is determined through open primaries,” he said adding that the conduct of aspirants and party members during the exercise would reflect the leadership culture the ADC seeks to promote.
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