By Rita Okoye
Governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Olajide Adeniran, popularly known as Jandor, has slammed the state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu for shunning the Platform debate.
Sanwo-Olu was scheduled to participate in the debate organised for governorship candidates in the state, but however, pulled out citing alleged political violence by supporters of the PDP candidate.
Speaking on a television programme, yesterday, Jandor said Sanwo-Olu avoided the debate because of his administration’s failures, and not for security reasons as he had claimed.
“If a governor of Lagos State that is supposed to be the Chief Security Officer of the state is saying that he is not safe, that speaks volume of what the people of Lagos state should expect. He is telling all of us that we are not safe under his watch because even he is not safe.”
Jandor, however, said insecurity was not the real excuse for the governor not showing up at the debt.
“He really needs to come and explain how he had a 2022 budget of N1.758 trillion with a performance of 77.9 per cent in the second quarter of that year yet we still have a poverty rate that rose from 4.5 per cent in 2019 when he took over to 8.5 per cent today. We still have an unemployment rate of 14.6 per cent when he took over but now we have 37.1 per cent.”
“He is supposed to come and explain how he did a budget of N812 billion in 2020 with 120 per cent budget performance at the end of the year according to him. He should come and explain how he did a budget of N1.25 trillion in 2021 and how that recorded a performance of 85.7 per cent in that year.”
The PDP candidate also accused Sanwo-Olu of promoting electoral violence and insecurity in the state.
“The spate of attacks is becoming alarming, and we need to do the needful. It was an attack on the people of Lagos – the people we are working together.
“What they are doing is to scare us off the road because they have got nothing to campaign with.
“They have given instructions to their boys that anywhere they see a PDP billboard they should remove it and in case of posters they should post on it,” Jandor further alleged.
Further accusing the APC administration of political violence ahead of the election, Jandor said: “Funke Akindele (PDP deputy governorship candidate) went to the market to campaign and she was chased out of the market. I wasn’t there, but I had to call her to retreat. I went to Oworo, they mounted a barricade that we will not come and I told the Commissioner of Police that I am going to go down my car and walk down and I did.”