By Samson Dombraye, Senior Staff Reporter.
From the manner thousands of Lagosians celebrated the parallel congress held across the State, last Saturday, October 16, 2021, it does appear that the stage is set for the termination of the draconian monopoly hitherto held by the Tinubu faction of the party. It was an unprecedented development seeing the stranglehold broken and dismantled with apparent ease. Badly shaken and rattled, a very high ranking official of the Tinubu faction was forced to issue a press statement branding the groups that emerged as mere “tea party”, forgetting that this move may well signal the birth of a new beginning for actual participatory democracy!
Our reporters gathered that if it sounded like bad news to the diehard Tinubu apologists, it was cheering news to the long-oppressed, downtrodden masses who constitute the bulk of taxpayers. “We need to break this long-overdue dominance”, said Mr Adebayo Adesokan. The general feeling among the party faithful, according to him was for this ageing dynasty to be eased out. “This is democracy and people should be free to participate”, he declared and questioned, “How do we claim to be practising democracy and we are in reality being enslaved?”
As a sign of fear and panic, another high ranking member of the State apparatus in charge of information was sighted making frantic calls to media houses not to use the story of any other congress in the State. “They are jittery”, disclosed one Suraju Monsuru in the Agege Pen Cinema area; Interviewed by our reporter, Suraju declared “this was the beauty of democracy”. Suraju expressed a strong desire to bring to an end, the dramatic 20 years’ iron grip of the mastermind of the APC factional leader described in popular circles as “Asiwaju Progressive Congress”!
Another fellow interviewed said he and his supporters were irked by the brazen manner that the State’s treasury is “sucked dry” using pretentious tactics under the guise of running a democratic government. “Now we have to show that era is over where one man sits in the comfort of his bedroom and pretend to be the godfather of Lagos politics” Suraju concludes. “They don’t know when to draw the line that’s why they stayed too long”, said Mr Raja. He went on to say ” you would attract flies When you stay too long in your faeces”. Raja is no small figure in the political circles of Lagos State.
He decried the harmful manner those he called opportunists are cornering the state resources for other purposes under the guise of “leading the state in the right direction”. Mr Raja disclosed that the apathy shown by Lagosians to the old guard was because of lack of sympathy and absence of any form of welfare for the masses. “they peddle lies and use same to manipulate and hijack elections”, said another fellow named Rasaki who demanded a radical departure from the shortsighted and visionless APC leaders in the State.
Nevertheless, as the wind of change spreads it’s unclear what the unsettled old brigade would do. “They may resort to panicky measures, but renaissance has begun and that’s normal with nature and time. Rasaki pointed out that the same breeze swept away the old guard in Kwara, Edo, Rivers and even Kano States. “If it happened in these places, it is now the turn of Lagos” explained Rasaki. By and large, our reporters got wind of the fact that the faction that produced Mrs Togbobo Beatrice as State chairman is the most favoured even by the national secretariat.
