Saturday 29th May 2021 started on a very bright note in Ojodu LCDA. It was the day set aside by the Lagos State Chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC) to conduct it’s party primaries across the state in preparation for the Local Government elections slated for July 24th 2021 by the state electoral authority, LASIEC.
In Ojodu LCDA, there were excitements as well as apprehension across the wards prior to the d-day as all the camps and factions within the party perfected their strategies to secure victory for their candidates.
As early as 7am yesterday, enthusiatic party faithfuls started trooping into the six venues designated for the primaries to cast their votes for their preferred aspirants.
*OJODU LCDA’S POLITICAL STUCTURE*
There are six (6) politics wards in Ojodu LCDA named Wards A to F.
Areas like Oluwole/Sogunro Estates, parts of Adeniyi Jones fall under Ward A; Aguda, Excellence Hotel and other adjoining communities fall under Ward B; a part of Oke-Ira fall under Ward C; another part of Oke-Ira known as Powerline falls under Ward D; Akiode, Omole Estate, Agidingbi and other inner communities fall under Ward E; while Ojodu, Berger and Yakoyo areas fall under Ward F.
Each of these Wards are supposed to produced a Councillorship candidate at the end of the exercise while a Chairmanship candidate is also expected to emerge.
*OJODU’S MAJOR POWER BLOCKS*
In the run down to the 2021 APC primaries, there were various politcal alignments across the LCDA and it became apparent that two (2) major power Blocks emerged in the party.
One block is led by Hon. James Abiodun Faleke, the ranking member representating Ikeja Federal Constituency at the House Representatives,while the other block belongs to a GAC member in the area, Cardinal James Odunmbaku also known as Baba Eto who co-opted the outgoing Chairman, Engr.Julius Oloro and others.
Despite this, the major, strongest and most widely accepted power block with the largest numbers of party followers in Ojodu LCDA is Hon. Faleke’s camp known as Team Faleke.
*THE CAMPS AND THEIR ASPIRANTS*
Team Faleke presented a woman Alhaja Kafayat Funmilayo Layeni (KFL) for Chairmanship post and adopted all the incumbent six(6) councillors as its aspirants. Layeni is a veteran female politician who has served the main progressive cacaus of the party in various capacities for over thirty (30) years, this explains why her emergence as an aspirant was widely accepted and greeted with euphoria across the LCDA.
The support and backing of Hon. Faleke and other leaders were also major boosters because of the sterling performance and great impact of the ranking Federal lawmaker across Ikeja Federal Constituency in the last ten (10) years.
Despite these, there were pockets of politcal sidetalks in some quarters about her age and issues.
On the hand, Odunmbaku’s camp under Baba Eto, who is also a veteran and a member of the highest decision Making body of APC in Lagos State, the Governor’s Advisory Council(GAC), presented Mr. Segun Odunmbaku who is one of the biological son’s of Baba Eto and who is currently serving as the SLG in same Ojodu LCDA.
While Segun’s aspiration was hinged on his father’s perceived clout, his touted educational attainment and his supposed youthfulness, not a few constituents saw his candidature as a brazen form of nepotism by his father and attempt to make Ojodu people serve the father and son.
Aside these two major spirants, there are others like the son of the incumbent Baale of Ojodu, known as Oladipupo Rasheed Aro, popularly called ORA who is aspiring from thesame ward F as Hon. Faleke. Others are the incumbent APC Chairman of Ojodu Ward E, Abolaji Soneye and a certain Bode Ogundele (Holy Grace) who both emerged from same Ward E as Baba Eto’s son.
*THE CAMPS AND THEIRSTRATEGIES*
Months before the May 29th Primaries, it was observed that while camps like Team Faleke were busy actively canvassing and amassing followership through clear cut strategies across the LCDA, Odunmbaku’s camp was a bit relaxed and somehow overconfident to the consternation of many observers.
Meanwhile the difference between Faleke/Layeni’s followership and that of Odunmbaku grew wider as time passed.
This was reflected at the official declaration of KFL which attracted an unprecedented mammoth crowd at the NIJ Ogba Venue on May 1st 2021.
The crowd displayed at that event by Team Faleke was said to have sent the Odunmbaku/Oloro’s camp into a serious panic mode.
While Team Faleke/KFL was said to be banking on the numerical strength of its supporters which apparently can beat any aspirant in any free and fair contest, Odunmbaku was allegedly busy making clandestine moves of securing Asiwaju’s endorsement for his son, which would have made the Primary elections in Ojodu a mere formality.
It emerged that this strategy failed woefully and backfired as Asiwaju Tinubu blatantly refused to endorse Odunmbaku’s son, but instead ordered a free and fair primaries to determine the candidates in Ojodu.
This was seen as a very bad news for the Odunmbaku’s camp as they obviously didn’t Prepare well and neither have what it takes to match the Faleke’s camp in terms of voters power in a free and fair party primaries.
Thus the stage was set for a grand disruption to cover up these shortcomings.
*HOW THE ELECTION DISRUPTION STARTED*
In Hon. Faleke’s Ward F, which is the largest ward of the six, as early as 7am, party members had arrived at the OJODU GRAMMAR SCHOOL field venue to exercise their rights by voting for their choice candidates and were patiently expecting the electoral officers from the state to arrive for the business of the day.
It was observed that Team Faleke organised tents and chairs for their teeming members and supporters to make them comfortable as they wait to cast their votes while other factions were also seen in other parts of the field.
There was calm and normalcy as they all waited for the Electoral Officers arrival.
*OUTGOING CHAIRMAN OLORO’S QUESTIONABLE ROLE*
At about past 9am, the incumbent and outgoing Chairman of OJODU LCDA, Julius Oloro drove in to the premises of the OJODU GRAMMAR SCHOOL venue of Ward F Primaries, alighted from his bus and look around briefly
When he saw the mammoth crowd of Team Faleke’s supporters who could easily be identified by the way they sat under their canopies, Oloro became jittery, agitated and very uncomfortable.
He was overheard by our reporters saying “there will be no election here today”.
After that, he entered his bus and zoomed off.
*THE LONG WAIT FOR ELECTORAL MATERIALS*
The long and frustrating wait for Electoral Officers and Materials in Ward F eventually came to an end around 12noon when the officials finally arrived.
It was gathered reliably that Electoral Officers and materials were hijacked by Engr. Oloro. According to the apology offered by the Returning Officer, they spent over 2 hours in Oloro’s office before coming back to the APC Secretariat.
It is instructive to note that, under the party’s election guidelines, the Electoral officers have no business going to Oloro’s office.
The appropriate place for them to report to on arrival at the Ojodu territory ought to be the APC OJODU LCDA Secretariat on Ajaiy Road, but it was gathered that Mr. Oloro craftily misled the officials to his office, where he (Oloro) and his cohorts succeeded in mixing up the party’s official register for each ward. For instance, Ward B register was taking to Ward D and this made it difficult to find the names of voters on the queue in the registers at those centres. This happened in other wards as well and people became quite agitated.
This was the beginning of the disruptions.
*OJODU WARD F AS THE EPICENTER OF DISRUPTION*
When the Electoral Officers eventually arrived at Ward F after 12 noon, they immediately addressed the crowd, pacify them and asked them to cooperate by lining up on a queue.
They then announced the names of the Councillorship Aspirants for Ward F on their list, which they gave as Hon. Olumide Akinade Amos (incumbent and Aspiring) and Lady Afolake Adams.
It was at this point that trouble started.
Apparently, the supporters of one of the Councillorship aspirants, Olaide Adebowale were expecting to hear his name.
Our reporters gathered that, Adebowale was actually disqualified by APC screening committee alongside Folake Adams. But while Folake Adams appeal succeeded, Adebowale’s appeal failed to scale through but we learnt he deliberately didn’t communicate this to his supporters. He was said to have falsely circulated on social media that he had been cleared.
Thus when the electoral officers read out Akinade and Adams names as the only two cleared aspirants, Adebowale’s supporters erupted in violent protests, chanting “we no go gree o….we no go gree”.
Efforts of the electoral officers to calm them down failed as other minority camps also joined them in the protest.
*HON. FALEKE’S ARRIVAL, PEACE MOVES AND THE VIDEO CLIP*
While the protests were still on, Rt. Hon. James Abiodun Faleke arrived and quickly moved to the spot to intervene in the matter in the interest of peace in his Ward.
Hon. Faleke was said to have politely asked Laide Adebowale to produce the evidence that he was actually cleared by the screening committee.
As Laide brought out his phone and was trying to show Hon. Faleke a purported message on his phone to that effect, his supporters and those of Rasheed Aro started chanting negative choruses unaware that Hon.Faleke who was merely trying to make peace between Laide and the electoral officers.
It was these category of persons that were seen in a video clip chanting all sorts of insulting choruses.
For peace to reign, the electoral officers later agreed that Laide’s name should be included in the list but Laide and his supporters insisted that the Officers have to go back to the party Secretariat to bring the supposed “original” document where his name was.
*THE ORA MOB AND THE NEED TO LEARN MORE*
Other key observations at Ward F Centre were the supporters of Baale Ojodu’s son, Rasheed Aro, obviously realising they were also in the minority in numbers, they did not want the election to hold, so they were seen conniving with other minority factions like Odunmbaku’s camp to disrupt the election process with aggressive protests and abusive choruses. Being upstarts in politics and majorly youth, these group were observed to be very unruly and aggressive. They need to learn more so that they can grow faster in politics.
*ELECTORAL OFFICERS’ NARROW ESCAPE*
The electoral officers had to quickly beat a retreat and escape from the venue when it became obvious that the protesting groups were charging towards them in a violent manner.
By this time, Rt. Hon. Faleke who displayed an uncommon fatherly maturity in the face of the unwarranted verbal jabs, had left the scene for another section of the venue.
It was noted that, despite being in the majority, members of Team Faleke never responded in any form to the disturbances orchestrated by those believed to be jittery of the outcome of the election if allowed to hold.
*THE ELECTION IN OTHER WARDS IN OJODU*
The story is the same in most of the wards apart from Wards A and D where voting took place successfully.
in Ward E, Baba Eto was thoroughly humiliated by the youths with chants of Ole Ole Ole when he allegedly attempted to carry out some manipulations at the centre. He was said to have been dazed by the overwhelming and intimidating presence of Team Faleke’s supporters in his Ward E Centre at Agidingbi Grammar school.
Also outgoing Chairman Oloro and Governor Sanwo-Olu’s Special Adviser on Housing Toke Benson’s attempt to hijack and disrupt the process in Ward A was sternly resisted by the youths and the process was completed with Funmi Layeni and Tunji Kogbodoku emerging victorious as Chairman and Councillor respectively.
While all the camps have their shortcomings, the role of Odunmbaku/Oloro’s camp (most especially, Oloro) in the disruption of what would have been a very peaceful and historic election in Ojodu LCDA, was very conspicuous.
There were also signs and proofs that the entire disruption was premeditated.
This was reflected in the excitement and feelings of euphoria in the camp Odunmbaku/Oloro and others shortly after the disruptions of the primary elections yesterday. They were seen curiously celebrating the inconclusive outcome with chest-beating and laughters.
As all parties await the Party’s directive on the next line of action, we can only urge all to play the rules and be peaceful.
Hmmmmmmm. Let the party intervain in the traditional way we are used to