Spreading Falsehood Will Never Work For You In Lagos, ACN Tells PDP

The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria has described as tendentious, false and reckless the statement from Lagos PDP that the Lagos State Governor is threatening non indigenes in the state.

The party says that even as it admits that there is no depth too low for Lagos PDP to sink in its desperate desire to capture Lagos, it frowns seriously at a situation where Lagos PDP has become a mill for the manufacturing and spreading of falsehood against the Lagos State government and the ACN with the hope of gaining political mileage from such devilish act.

In a release in Lagos, signed by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Joe Igbokwe, the party challenges Lagos PDP to prove how the insistence of the governor that those who continue breaching the peace and good governance of Lagos should either conform or leave Lagos as proof that the governor is threatening non indigenes of Lagos. The party said that Lagos PDP’s childish resort to calling on President Jonathan to descend on Lagos at the drop of a pin sounds quite intriguing and exposes the devilish intent in PDP’s present mission in Lagos, which is not far from the established PDP’s mission to reduce Lagos to the pit of hell it had made the country in the past thirteen years.

“We view the present spreading of tendentious falsehood against Lagos as one of the many desperate antics of Lagos PDP as it continues to lose grip of the politics of Lagos . To twist the governor’s position that those that constitute threats to law and order in Lagos should either conform or ship out as threat to non indigenes of Lagos is yet another case of the devilish falsehoods that now serve as anchor to the miserable lot of Lagos PDP. To engage in a do-or-die whipping of sentiment over the restriction of movement to okada operators on 475 out of 9000 roads in Lagos has become the present pastime of a hollow party that continues to clutch on straws for survival.

“Lagos ACN is taken aback that a party that has wrecked the country in thirteen years of unmitigated plundering is anchoring its present desire to add Lagos to its vassal estate on whipping ethnic and tribal sentiments on restriction of movement to okada operators on some major roads in Lagos. Lagos ACN is still waiting to hear the reaction of Lagos PDP to the decision of not less than ten PDP states to totally ban okada operations in their states. We are yet to hear the response of Lagos PDP to the total ban imposed by the PDP government on okada operations in the Federal Capital if it is now hooked to the okada politics for survival. If Lagos PDP and its jejune politics is now predicated on okada politics, pray why has it not cautioned its federal government and the state governments under the control of the PDP to rescind the decision to ban okada operators in their states? We ask Lagos PDP to prove that it is only non indigenes that operate okada in Lagos if it is desperate to misinform its audience that by telling okada operators to either conform to the law to restrict okada operation to certain roads in Lagos or ship out translates to waging war against non indigenes,” said ACN.

The party further stated: “But most importantly, Lagos PDP sees it as a tragedy of monumental proportion that a country that has harvested over N100 trillion from sundry means since 1999 is now being forced to play okada politics by the same party that stole and looted these huge resources in a stretch of perhaps the biggest loot in human history. We dare ask that if the PDP has not looted the huge wealth that has accrued to the country since 1999, would Nigerians now be stuck in a situation where its graduates and able youths are only employed through operating rickety motorcycles on risky highways? We dare ask,  if the same PDP that is now hooked on okada politics in Lagos has not stolen Nigeria blind in thirteen years, would our youths be exploited through the way Lagos PDP is doing today by appealing to cheap sentiments over restriction of okada movement in Lagos? If PDP did not misappropriate the trillions of naira oil wealth that has accrued to Nigeria since 1999, would Nigerian citizens not be assured of a more decent life and means of transportation than the deadly okada.

“But we know the antics of Lagos PDP, which is playing cheap ethnic politics with the hope that it will wake their dead party from the grave. For the avoidance of doubt, Governor Fashola is accommodative of non-Lagosians in Lagos and has many of them in his government in high positions. He therefore cannot be threatening non-Lagosians. He meets regularly with non Lagosians to interact and rub minds on how to enhance peaceful co existence because he realizes that Lagos is a melting pot for every Nigerian and he works to uphold this tenet. If Governor Fashola ever warns Lagosians who constitute menace to others, such warnings are within his constitutional powers as the Number One citizen of Lagos State . Such warnings are to all Lagosians and never restricted to non Lagosians. But Lagos PDP, desperate for straws to anchor their miserable political hopes, will go viral and twist these facts with the hope they will con unsuspecting non Lagosians. “Lagos ACN frowns seriously at the puerile resort of Lagos PDP to always call on President Jonathan to descend on Lagos, as if Lagos is a vassal territory to the PDP and the federal government. While we see this ready penchant to run to Abuja with a plea to deal with Lagos as stupid and outlandish, we want to warn Lagos PDP to stop the foolery of seeing Lagos as an annex of the PDP and the federal government because such is not possible in a federal state. We want Lagos PDP to grow up to the fact that Lagos is an autonomous unit of the Federal Republic of Nigeria whose powers are derived from the federal constitution of Nigeria and not at the behest of the selfish whims and caprices of the PDP, either at the national level or its lollipop hungry state chapter. We advise them to quit behaving like over-indulged delinquents and grow up to the reality that the Lagos State government will always act with the best interest of Lagosians at heart as in the present restriction of okada movement in certain parts of Lagos.”