Why We Dumped APC For APM - Agege Aspirants, Say Mudasiru Obasa Has Nothing To Do With It

A former Chairman of the Agege Local Government Area of Lagos State, Ganiyu Egunjobi, and a former aspirant in Agege Constituency II, Azeez Yusuf, have dismissed reports linking their defection from the All Progressives Congress to the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudasiru Obasa.

The duo said this in a statement they jointly signed and made available to Lagos Today Extra!,.

The duo, who contested the tickets of the All Progressives Congress for Agege Constituencies I and II respectively, emerged as candidates of the Allied Peoples Movement on Thursday.

Their defection came after an APC primary in which Egunjobi’s former Vice-Chairman, Glenga Abiola, was declared the winner of the Agege Constituency I ticket.

Likewise, Yusuf had lost the primary ticket to Sakiru Enimakure.

However, the former APC members who insisted on their victory at the primaries have clarified the misleading report that Obasa was behind their exit from the party.

They noted that the decision was carefully considered independently.

“For the avoidance of doubt, Rt. Hon. Mudasiru Obasa had no hand whatsoever in our decision to leave the APC and contest under the platform of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM). The decision was entirely ours and was taken independently after careful consideration of our experiences within the party,” the statement partly read.

While stating that they showed loyalty to the APC structure in the Agege LGA, despite “political challenges,” they were later confronted with “grave injustice.”

 

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They maintained that party defections were typical in the Nigerian political space, saying the movement “from one political party to another was not unusual in Nigerian politics,” citing “former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, who is now Director-General of the governorship campaign of the APC candidate, Obafemi Hamzat,” as an example.

“What is the issue with our decision to leave? Obanikoro once left the party and was even openly critical of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“We did not leave then. We remained, strengthened the party and contributed to its growth. We had never contemplated leaving until we were confronted with what we considered grave injustice,” they claimed.

The duo lamented their disappointment at the leadership of the APC as it “failed to initiate any meaningful reconciliation effort after the disputed primaries.”

The former APC aspirants “maintained that their decision to join the APM was, therefore, “a direct consequence of what they described as the denial of their mandates.”

According to the statement, Egunjobi and Yusuf made internal efforts within the APC by “submitting petitions and seeking redress, but were disappointed that the leadership did not invite them for reconciliation or provide a satisfactory resolution to their complaints.”

The statement noted that their “defection should, therefore, not be interpreted as a move engineered.” Rather, it was a decision they took “after considering their experience within the APC and the failure to resolve the dispute over the primary elections.”

  

Categories: Politics And Policies