Residents of Agege under the Presidential Campaign Council, PCC, have called on President Bola Tinubu to call the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa to order over his alleged imposition of candidates on them for political positions.
The residents had last week staged a protest to reject the names of candidates for the Agege local government and Orile-Agege local council development areas as Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively published by the state party for the incoming council elections.
They claimed that the candidate approved by the party for Agege local chairman is a stooge of Obasa and has been bed-ridden for several months while the speaker alsol chose his son, who had earlier been disqualified, as the vice chairman.
At the Tuesday’ protest meeting of the PCC held in Agege, the residents said they have had enough of Obasa’s continued cornering of all political positions meant for the community to himself and his stooges.
The residents carried banners with inscriptions such as ‘Red Card, Obasa O to ge,’ and sang protest song ‘Enough is Enough, this suffering is enough, Tinubu rescue us.’
The Chairman, PCC for Agege and Orile-Agege, Kamardeen Sabitu said since 2018, the residents have been in the struggle to stop Obasa’s imposition of candidates on them.
“There is no true democracy in Agege. The struggle started years ago and we lost one of our leaders in 2018 during protest against Obasa. Eleven of us have been sent to jail,” he said.
” We don’t want one person to dictate to us Agege politics. I salute the courage of those of us saying no to political imposition in Agege. One person wants to take over political structure in Agege and we say no to it. We say no to dictatorship and political imposition in Agege,” he added.
He further said that while the group is not planning to leave the All Progressives Congress, APC, and appreciates the party leaders for their leadership role, they will not accept candidates imposed on them by Obasa.
“We would remain in the party and we appreciate our leaders. We are solidly behind President Tinubu. The movement of peace by Obasa should go beyond the pages of newspapers. He should call a meeting of leaders in Agege to discuss. We have gathered 2,000 signatures of residents of Agege and Orile-Agege and everyone is saying no to the imposition of candidates,” Sabitu said.
Other residents who spoke called on President Bola Tinubu to ‘rescue us ‘ from Obasa’s imposition,saying that political positions should be evenly distributed among interest groups rather than allowing only Obasa to corner all positions.
“We are still for Tinubu for the 2nd term but we don’t want candidates to be imposed on us by one in Agege. Every position should not be for one man alone. Obasa should leave us to choose by ourselves whom we want . We don’t want his candidate and his son,” said Chief Saheed Obadina.
Another resident, Omolola Abiodun said: “We don’t want the person they gave us in Agege as chairman. The man has been bed-ridden till now. This is not what democracy is about. We have better candidates. President Tinubu and his wife Remi should come to our rescue in Agege and Orile-Agege.”
” We won’t leave the party for anyone. We are not fighting the party or Tinubu, we are only telling the truth. We are gentle men and women. We are the ones voting. Tinubu should tell Obasa that enough is enough,” said Funmi Adedeji.
