Former State Chairman of Lagos PDP and Convener, Unity Freedom Group (UFG), Eng. Adedeji Doherty, says that 16 years after frontline politician Eng. Funso Williams was murdered, Lagos State is still suffering from poor and exploitative governance that he campaigned against during his lifetime.
Doherty, in a statement e-signed on his behalf by Mr. Muka Popoola, head of DD Media Team, while remembering the late Williams on his 16 years of his unfortunate demise lamented that the ill-focussed and insensitive leadership that he deplored during his lifetime is very much prevalent under the political leadership that has ruled the state since 1999.
The late Williams, then a leading PDP gubernatorial aspirant for the Lagos House, was murdered by yet unknown assailants who broke into his Ikoyi residence in the night of July 27, 2006.
Doherty, who is also a former gubernatorial aspirant under the Lagos PDP, said it was regrettable that the state was deprived of the sterling, humane and developmental governance that the late Funso Williams would have offered were he not cut down by evil forces who wanted to maintain their stranglehold on the state.
Doherty recalled how he and other PDP leaders were incarcerated in the police cell at Alagbon for several months to divert attention from the bogus investigation into the politically motivated murder, saying that it is a sad commentary that no one has been punished for the heinous act up till date.
Doherty said that a Funso Williams Government in Lagos State would have liberated the indigenes and other residents of the state from the grip of the aliens who today ride roughshod on everyone and run the affairs of the state with the callous mentality of Nigeria’s pre-independence colonial masters.
Calling on Lagos PDP leaders to rededicate themselves to Williams’ ideals of political civility, humane fraternal relationship to better the lot of the party’s members and his welfarist agenda to develop Lagos and provide good service to the citizenry, all of which earned him the sobriquet of “Omoluabi Eko”, Doherty said the memories of his great leadership values still resonated with persons like him who operated closely with him in his personal and political activities.
Doherty said Funso Williams used his personal goodwill and political influence to promote the Lagos PDP while as candidate he ensured that his actions were a source of hope to the leadership and members of the party.
Doherty charged leaders and members of the Lagos PDP to brace up for the 2023 elections in order to sack the inept APC government at the centre and the slavish Lagos cabal that has been milking the state since the AD era of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the old presidential Candidate of the APC, who governed the state from 1999 to 2007 or rather till date .