A senior member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Agege Local Government Area of Lagos State, Mukaram Popoola has advised all leaders, elders and indeed all members of the party to come together to take the party to it’s pride of place in Lagos State.
In a statement released titled “Lagos PDP, our beautiful hour is here”, he congratulated well meaning members of the party for the success of the State Congress which produced Hon Philip Aivoji as the newly elected Chairman of the party in the state.
He called on aggrieved members of the party to sheath their swords and allow peace to reign for the collective interest of the party.
His release read:
Our beautiful hour, the beautiful hour of Lagos PDP, is here!
Yes, our beautiful hour happened with the success of our state congress on Sunday, Feb. 27.
It was the first elective congress in the party’s chequered history in 20 years or thereabouts in Lagos State, a congress that marked the rebirth of the Lagos PDP and one that came with tremendous hope for reinventing the lackluster administrative mechanisms that had over the years made winning elections in the Lagos PDP almost a taboo.
Even more alluring for our great party in Lagos is that the National Working Committee of the party, after a long, terrifying wait, had finally ratified the results of the congress and so, at any moment from now, the elected executives will take full charge of the running of the party’s affairs in the state.
So, I will say congratulations to all well-meaning leaders and members of the Lagos PDP; congratulations to Hon. Phillip Aivoji and his team as they brace up for the great tasks at hand.
But this is no time to lock horns…
It is, however disheartening to note, that even as the NWC had given the final nod to the congress, the dust raised over it has again flared up the skies clouding on the party.
Some highly influential and respected leaders have in their own considered opinion condemned the milestone recorded by the Lagos PDP.
As far as they are concerned, the state congress where their preferred candidate for state chairmanship Dr. Amos Fawole, ran neck-to-neck with the winner, Hon. Aivoji, was a “sham” and “badly flawed”, contending that it ought to be discarded.
That’s interesting really!
In a 13-paragraph communique that has been widely circulated on various PDP loops since the last 48 hours, the leaders representing a disparate column within the party have voiced what sounds more like a flint dissent to the progress being made to push up the party.
The grandiloquence of the grammar deployed in direct attack on the personality of the National Chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, and the undisguised threat to embark on actions that will further plunge the party into the abyss is heavy and, to say the least, dangerously venomous, disingenuous and unwarranted.
The directive to certain LGA chairmen to float parallel meetings in their respective LGs and distance themselves from the State Exco when constituted is perfunctory, wrong and totally misplaced.
Also, the plan to challenge the national leadership’s decision on the congress in court is a calculated mischief to further drag the party down in Lagos.
The obvious is that whatever further distractive actions are being taken by the leaders has only one and disdainful mission, it is to make the party UNGOVERNABLE.
And what does that do to us in the Lagos PDP?
It is clearly designed to ruin the party’s chances going into the 2023 elections so that all members who might be contesting will, as had happened in previous election seasons, return empty handed.
I believe all well-meaning leaders and members will not agree that this is the route to go now.
This is definitely no time to lock horns again over control of party structures, except we’re on a mission less than noble; not when more and more Lagosians, including persons who had had a good time in the ruling APC, are embracing the Lagos PDP and our chances to win elections are brightest more than ever before.
Why Feb. 27th is symbolic…
The Lagos PDP has never had it so good in about 20 years. The joy of the ordinary members who had always desired that they belonged to a truly democratic party where their voices would be heard and their right to choose their leaders would be respected without hindrance is huge at the moment.
It’s hard to see anyone that’s unhappy with the new turn in the Lagos PDP, except perhaps a tiny gang of self-fulfiling persons who have been profiting over the past years from the lopsidedness of the party.
The most symbolic of the Feb 27th successful congress is that it’s the road we had been scared to travel, terrified perhaps, in spite of its very well known democratic essence and the huge potentials in developing the party’s capacity for winning elections.
We were always frightened away from the desire to express our democratic freedoms of choosing our leaders at every congress season because certain big individuals, who had over the years enjoyed some kind of imperatoral dominance and control of the party’s management were given to selling the scam that PDP members would kill one another and the bodies of our members would litter the streets of Lagos.
It was our blind tradition not to hold congresses; sadly not because the generality of members didn’t want it but some privileged leaders whom we had accepted almost as some kind of deity would rather we balkanise the party through sharing of Exco positions mostly to sustain their cronies at all levels of the party structure (Ward, LGA and State) and the resultant effect had been for us having a party system that is run like a personal fiefdom.
Merit was never a serious consideration. Persons who could never on their own have bargained to be elected as a zonal chairman in their wards had dramatically found themselves being foisted on the members, sometimes in high positions of LG chairman or even in higher offices at the state level.
Such were the abberations that we lived with all through the past years.
Thank God we broke that jinx, we had the elective congress that we had always feared to do and heaven did not fall.
Welcome to a new Lagos PDP
Today, the Lagos PDP will be seen by outsiders as having experienced a rebirth.
Let me make a pause here and congratulate our dear members, you are the unsung heroes of the landmark congress, you are the true winners.
You all took the decision that it was time to reinvent our party and together we fought the battle. And by God’s power, our collective will prevailed.
We won.
All those who contested in that historic congress and the rest of us, from our top leaders to the generality of members that endured the stress and pains of getting it over, have done exceedingly well to give our party a new verve, with attractive public posturing and perception that can enhance our acceptability to the Lagos electorate.
Definitely, 2023 looks more promising if we would ignore the new wave of distraction from any aggrieved quarters and together build on the enthusiasm of all members for our party to get better and stronger.
The war with APC has just begun…
The actual message from the success of our congress is that the real war has just begun.
The war in our hands now as PDP leaders and members is to frontally take on the greedy mercantilist political masquerades of the Bola Tinubu criminal cartel who have held our Lagos hostage since the return to democracy in 1999.
That is the real war we’ve got to fight together, not with ourselves or anyone in our party.
And it is a war that is at this our beautiful hour deserving our all in all lawful manners.
How dear is the war to us, and how dearly should we take it as Lagos PDP members?
It is a war for our liberation as politicians of the PDP stock in Lagos and for the generality of Lagosians who at every election season do look up to our party for a true, people-centred and progressive change in the running of the state affairs.
The support we had routinely enjoyed from the elections at every season even though we had never been lucky to rule the state is evidence of how much the Lagos electorate loved our party and desired that we win at the elections.
The 2023 elections are around the corner and we cannot afford to fail Lagosians again. Indeed, we must not fail them the next time around.
This is the challenge before the new state Exco.
Once again, I congratulate the Lagos PDP.
MUKA POPOOLA
Senior member, Agege PDP
