GOVERNORSHIP candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Jimi Agbaje, on Tuesday, said that Lagosians are groaning under National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his cronies for what they have turned themselves into in Lagos that should rate as Nigeria’s foremost state.
Agbaje said this in a statement issued by Director of Media and Publicity, Jimi Agbaje Campaign Organisation (JACO), Felix Oboagwina, in reaction to Tinubu, who mocked him for adopting the FREEDOM slogan for his 2019 aspiration.
Tinubu had at a stakeholder’s parley of APC, which took on Monday at the party’s secretariat on ACME Road and attended by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, the APC governorship candidate, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the party leadership, among others told Agbaje, the PDP governorship candidate, to go and take up apprenticeship as a vulcaniser or tailor if he wanted Freedom.
“Apparently, the APC leader has lost touch with reality. Otherwise, he would know that like the children of Israel, Lagosians are groaning under the taskmaster that Tinubu and his cronies have turned themselves into in this state that should rate as Nigeria’s foremost,” Agbaje said.
“Pharaoh, you must let our people go!” the PDP gubernatorial candidate charged.
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Recalling that the Biblical Pharaoh had finally conceded liberty to the Israelites only after several vicious plagues, Agbaje said Lagosians would be liberated after the people delivered an electoral disgrace to APC in 2019.
This was just as he said that the slogan, “Freedom,” mirrored the same spirit that moved Nelson Mandela to declare his long walk to freedom in an Apartheid South Africa.
“We identify with our vulcanisers, tailors and all craftsmen who have the joy of duly-earned freedom after their apprenticeship. But it is apparent that, unlike them, those who have gotten used to filthy lucre and the dividends of corruption cannot savour the joy that comes with the legitimate sweat and labour of hardworking artisans,” Agbaje said.
The PDP standard bearer maintained that Lagos must be free from the era of nepotism and corruption that saw a private firm maintaining a stranglehold on the state’s funds contrary to world best practice.
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According to him, the Freedom theme was not a coinage that he and his team plucked from the air, but had come from gauging the mood of Lagos and realising that the citizens nurtured a deep hunger to be liberated from the severe vicissitudes and subhuman conditions inflicted on them by the ruling clique since 1999.
Naming Tinubu as the head of a vested interest that had turned Lagos into a private enterprise, Agbaje blamed the ruling APC for the state’s dismal global rating in housing, security and livability.
The PDP candidate lamented that due to misgovernment by APC, Lagos waterways and lagoons had become a major spot for people committing suicide, a factor, he said that had corrupted its reputation as the state of aquatic splendour.
“The happiness index of the state continues on a downward spiral. And the reasons are obviously because of the failure of government,” he lamented.
Speaking further, he listed reasons why he and his team felt strongly that Lagosians needed freedom, saying: “You wake up one morning and find that like the Jews in Poland during the Second World War, you have a toll gate caging you in; and you must pay a toll to leave and return to your home and birthplace in which you used to freely move, you need freedom from those tolls,” Agbaje said.
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“When you find yourself assailed by loads and loads of filth because of an unreasonable and inefficient waste disposal regime, then you desire to be free to breathe fresh air in a hygienic environment.
“When you find yourself wasting precious man-hours every day in a traffic jam, you need freedom.
“When you are a local government chairman and instead of getting full allocation from the Federal purse to operate, you are made to sign for a minuscule portion of your council’s funds and you don’t know what happens to the bulk, you need freedom.
“When you find that your roads are in a terrible state because of a government that cherishes the high returns of gigantic contracts instead of paying attention to basic maintenance of tertiary roads, then you want freedom to enjoy smooth roads.
“When you enter into political office with lofty visions and programmes and you find you cannot deliver because someone somewhere has compromised your initiative, you need freedom!
“When you go to the polls and your votes do not count, you need freedom!
“When you find your access to healthcare hampered by an inefficient hospital system and that even the cost of dying is priced well beyond your reach as a common man because of exorbitant mortuary fees, you want freedom for you and your family to enjoy such a basic need.”
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