Omo Eko Pataki Forum, an association of Lagos State indigenes, has called on the two major political parties, the All Progressive Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to field Lagos indigenes as candidates in the forthcoming bye elections for the Lagos East Senatorial seat and Kosofe 11 State constituency election.
The bye elections will take place to replace the late Senator Bayo Osinowo who represented Lagos East before his death on June 15 and Tunde Burahimoh, who until his death represented Kosofe State Constituency 11.
In a statement issued yesterday, trustee of Omo Eko Pataki Forum, former minister of communication and former GOC 3rd Armoured Division, Jos, General Tajudeen Olanrewaju (retd), urged the two major political parties to work towards the emergence of Lagos indigenes in the two forthcoming bye elections as a way of placating the indigenes who he claimed have been marginalised over the years.
“In my continuous quest to ensure equity, justice and fair play in the matters concerning my fellow indigenous Lagosians, I am seizing this opportunity to appeal to the two major parties in my dear state to rectify the festering wrongs and heal the subsisting wounds by deliberately ensuring that their candidates for both the vacant House of Assembly position and the vacant East Senatorial District position are indigenous people.
“The positions were once occupied by none native Lagosians. This is not fair. This is not just.
“Let us start to do things in proper, legitimate and constitutional way. Lagosians have suffered too much marginalisation upon their own soil. This historic opportunity can be used as the beginning of correcting the ills that still confront us all.
“I do not write as a partisan person. I am not a member of any political party. I absolutely no leanings towards any political strand. My interest is about the development and the growth of my state. As a retired Major General and a former General Officer Commanding 3rd Mechanised Division, I am a stakeholder in the affairs of my state and I do stand firmly as an elder statesman who wishes the best for my state and my country. This is what Omo Eko Pataki Forum stands for. APC and the PDP should please ensure that their candidates for the two vacant positions are Lagos indigenes to mark a good beginning and correct the errors of the past.
“The marginalisation of Lagos indigenes in the political positions should stop and we want this to be corrected with the filling of these two vacant positions with Lagos indigenes,” Olanrewaju said.