In 2015, you aspired to be the Lagos State Governor under the PDP and in 2019, you were a candidate under the Social Democratic Party (SDP); why didn’t you contest at the 2023 election?…..CONTINUE READING...CONTINUE READING
In 2015, I worked with five other people who wanted to be governor like Tunde Gbadamosi, Late Dominic and Dr Adedosun and others; all of us were to later realise that some of our leaders like Bode George had already endorsed Jimi Agbaje and that we should all pull out.
In 2015, Agbaje scored 47 percent of the votes; he was close to winning. Unfortunately the division within our party cost him the election. Obanikoro came back to run (in the primaries) and I joined him as his Director General (DG). As soon as we lost the primaries, President Jonathan called Obanikoro and made him the Lagos State chairman of Jonathan/Sambo Campaign Organisation and made me the DG. Unfortunately, our own group working for the president was at the same time working against Jimi Agbaje for governor.
Our people didn’t vote for Jimi and that was what cost us that election. There was so much division in the party but in 2023 I couldn’t really say I wanted to run for governorship. I left PDP in 2017 and returned in 2019. Incidentally I was the SDP governorship candidate in Lagos State in 2019 but you won’t know because we didn’t have money to push for publicity and all that.
SDP was a party only in name but I was the governorship candidate then. In 2023, I didn’t just want to run for the governorship but I ran for senate. But what happened regarding the senatorial ambition was typical of us in the PDP; we are too quick to bring in people from outside to run for positions. We did that with AbdulAzeez Adediran, popularly called Jandor. Jandor came in and it was a disaster.
When he came, he was somehow given the authority to pick delegates for the primaries. Imagine an aspirant given authority to pick delegates for primaries, so unfortunately he picked people entirely new to PDP who knew nothing about the party. Because of the delegates which Jandor chose intentionally, to control the party, he wanted to ensure and control who becomes the senatorial candidate and House of Reps candidates.
They were instructed by Jandor to vote for certain people who he felt would not be a threat to him in the party like myself whom he thought would be a competitor. So when I got to the primaries, just like many people in my caliber in the party, I didn’t know any delegate from my own local government and the delegates didn’t know me either.
That was the end of our election because people who later emerged were people who knew nobody. He thought he was doing himself a favour because they were the same people who voted for him in the primaries.
He became a candidate by default and leading candidates like Dr Adedosun all dropped out. He had already gotten Bode George to tell Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour to step down for him. So he had no competitor. It was the people that gave him the power to choose delegates.
When we went for the election, we had candidates (for Senate and House) nobody knew; they knew nobody, had no money and had no influence to effectively compete.
Some governors had already promised me that whatever happened and I won my primaries, they would support me because of our relationships; because I have been working for them, but the people who won the primaries didn’t have anything or know anybody and that was why PDP performed so badly.
How will you generally assess the 2023 elections vis-a-vis other previous elections in the country?…..CONTINUE READING
