We have watched Captain Tunji Shelle’s interview aired on Arise TV on the 2nd of January 2023 and are compelled to offer our take on same.
As a Former State Secretary and later State Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party in Lagos State, we expected Shelle to have a deeper knowledge and understanding of the affairs of the party not only in Lagos but at the national level.
On the contrary, Shelle, in that interview, displayed his lack of understanding of the current events at all levels of the party. Yet, Shelle’s supposedly one of the so-called New Apex Leaders of the party in Lagos.
These new self appointed set of lazy, selfish, corrupt, cowardly and unimaginative leaders will achieve nothing for PDP and take it nowhere but certain defeat and extinction.They have shown themselves to be incapable of defending and standing up for the party and its members during adversities.
It explains the slave mentality of some of the people parading themselves as the new faces or leaders of Lagos PDP.
This is clearly the case of pygmies parading themselves as giants planners of a new dawn.
Shelle and people like him are only interested and actively struggling for appointments and money and are prepared to lie, distort and misrepresent anything or anyone on any issue.
How do you otherwise explain his assertion of having advised Chief Olabode George to retire from politics when he had betrayed and abandoned the man some six years ago. A man who supposedly advised Chief Olabode George at least six years ago before jumping ship now follows Dr Ogunkelu, an 84 years old man as his new Leader in Lagos State.
If Shelle understands the party he led in Lagos for four years, he will know that Chief Olabode George, as a Life Member of the Board of Trustees, needs no retirement advice from him. He should save his advice for his current leader, Dr Abimbola Ogunkelu, who is well into his eighties but a tenured Board of Trustees member.
It is the height of self delusion for Shelle to refer to himself as the closest person to Chief Bode George. Shelle became politically known to Chief Bode George when he joined the PDP to contest the Eti-osa House of Representatives primary election in 2006.
He lost the bid and his benefactor paved the way for him to become the State Secretary of the party and four years later, the State Chairman of the party.
Chief Bode George, therafter, recommended him to former President Goodluck Jonathan as a member of the FERMA BOARD.
It goes without saying that everything Shelle achieved politically is through Chief Olabode George and God Almighty.
Captain Shelle claimed that many people have left Chief Bode George, yet, when the opportunity came for him to showcase his relevance without Chief Olabode George’s contribution with the people he has with him and his leaders led by Dr Abimbola Ogunkelu and as a members of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council in Lagos to organise the PDP Presidential Campaign Rally in Lagos and welcome our Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his team to Lagos, what we saw was the worst presidential rally in the history of Lagos PDP. So much for Shelle’s claim.
Captain Shelle’s military credentials and etiquette is seriously under question just as his Omoluabi background. The espirit de Corpse tradition of the Military is well known the world over.
What on earth could make a supposed Captain in the Nigerian Navy talk in the manner that this Captain did about both former President, General Olusegun Obasanjo, who accepted the surrender of Biafra War before Shelle ever got admitted into the Nigerian Navy and Commodore Olabode George who has put in over 25 years of his life serving the nation in the Navy and 25 years of his quality life serving PDP at National level?
Surely, Shelle passed through the military but he has not allowed the military to pass through him.
After all, Captain Shelle joined and left the military as an education instructor in the Nigerian Navy.
Captain Shelle in the Arise TV interview clearly displayed his lack of Knowledge of what the struggle in the PDP is all about.
A simple demand for the respect of the Southwest in the sheme of things based on the principles of Equity, Fairness and Justice was merely refferd to as a
“One Man Show” by Shelle.
However, this is our take on the interview. Chief Olabode George who is currently out of the country will respond robustly whenever he comes back from his overseas trip.
One thing that is certain in all of these is that, with Shelle and his type at the helm of PDP affairs in Lagos, the redemption of our party in the state is certainly NOT in sight.
COMRADE FEMI ONISEMO
FOR CONCERNED YOUTHS OF LAGOS STATE.
