By Chinwendu Obienyi
The Lagos State Governorship candidate, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran popularly known as Jandor has stated that the party will break the “Lagos Hegemony” in the forthcoming elections next month.
This was even as he described the recent Lagos Blue line rail project as “kpangolo” while adding that the state has stopped experiencing governance for many years.
Jandor while speaking on a live programme monitored by Daily Sun on Thursday, said Babajide Sanwo-Olu who is the current Lagos state governor is part of the “Lagos Hegemony” which has been dominating the state for many years and described him as an inexperienced and inconsequential individual.
Although Jandor agreed that he had worked on the platform of the All Progressive Party (APC), he revealed that he was irritated with the monopoly and hence decided to pitch his tent with the PDP.
“The current governor is part of the terrible system that we are speaking to and so as far as this campaign is all about, I will say the current governor is inconsequential because politically, he has no experience, structure and someone just handed that office to him on a platter of gold.
This monopoly or dynasty has always been there and these 4 years have been nothing to write home about. In 2011, I saw all of these and I was irritated with this hegemony and we saw it played out in 2015 and you ask yourself why is it that this person will not like to return a performing governor. Fashola in his second term almost paid for it. Ambode did well but did not survive it and it has then become a pattern and so for us we have seen all these and we say that there must be a terminal point. Before things are done in Lagos, they have to get an “almighty’ approval and we are at a point where we need to put a stop to it and break free and allow a lot of people to come into this space”, he said.
According to him, investors are afraid of coming to Lagos simply because someone allegedly wants to take a cut in every business that is coming into the state and that won’t help anybody.
“Look at Rivers state for instance, despite we Lagos topping in terms of IGR and others, the Governor, Rivers State, Nyesom Wike is commissioning projects and this is what we need to do for Lagos state but first we need to break this monopoly of governors that are dependent on someone in higher authority. We need to have governors that are independent and this is what we represent”, Jandor said.
Speaking further, Jandor noted that despite its huge resources, the unemployment rate in the state had surged to 37.16 per cent as against 14 per cent when the current administration came into power.
“We see them bringing in kpangolo (carcass) for rail lines and it is celebrated? This is how low the state has denigrated and a project that you have been on for 13 good years and it is not even completed, this is bad and the problem is that we have one head thinking for the state of Lagos for many years,” the PDP governorship candidate said.
