Lagos APC Faction Calls For Resignation Of Party Chairman
Mojisola Lawal
Factional chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Democrats, in Lagos state, Hon. Fuoad Oki, has called for the resignation of the state caretaker committee chairman, Hon Tunde Balogun, saying, he lacks administrative and managerial skills to manage the party.
Oki, who was a guest on a radio talk programme, The Discourse on Nigeria Info, on Tuesday, said Balogun has done more damage than good to the party therefore he is no longer fit to run the party affairs.
He said, “At 70, Hon Tunde Balogun has nothing to offer the party. He is not agile. There is nothing he has left to over. He does not have the skill to manage the party and he has done more damage to the party because of his lack of managerial skills.
When you interrogate party members, they will tell you that he has set us back by his style of administration. For instance, before he was reappointed as caretaker committee chairman, how many times did he call stakeholders meeting, either the State Working Committee or the State Executive meeting or the State Caucus?
Rather, what he does is to go back to the GAC to dish out directives to him. You don’t do that in political management and administration. These are the issues. These are what Lagosians are saying they don’t want again. Let them go and retire. At age 70, do you think he has the agility to move back and forth?”
Reiterating his stance on the dwindling popularity of the party among Lagosians, Oki said, the recently held local government elections in the state is a referendum on the APC, stating that, it is a test of the popularity of the party among the people.
“There is trust deficit in our relationship with the people. The people are telling us that they don’t trust us anymore, which was why, they accepted not coming out to exercise their franchise as fait accompli.
In furtherance to that, in February, we concluded our membership and revalidation exercise wherein we claimed to have 2.5million members in Lagos state, how come that only about 500, 000 of that 2.5members actually voted in Lagos state.
By the time you tabulate the result of the local government election, you will see that the total number of votes received by the APC was a little over 500, 000. It means that the party needs to do a structural procedure in order to win back its traditional supporters who are no longer with us. This is why I called it a referendum.
“The local government election should be seen a referendum on Lagos APC. You may want to ask why I said so. I said it because if a party back to back has been in control of a state since 1999 and the government of that party organises a local government election, expectedly, the party should clearly be ready to see it acceptance and popularity.
But what we saw, apart from the exercise being a charade, is also an acknowledgement that our party is no longer popular. It is an indictment on our service delivery because if we are doing very well, the people will reciprocate.”
Commenting on the effectiveness the PDP as an opposition in the state, he said, “The PDP in Lagos are just being lazy. They had an opportunity a couple of months ago but they didn’t see it because they are just lazy, hence their inability to latch on it. I don’t buy into the argument that the Lagos PDP is being affected by lack of fund. You see, we have allowed mediocre make us believe that politics require humongous amount of funding. No. You need the people. You must go out there to get the votes. Therefore we must begin to come out. The PDP are lazy bunch of individuals. They want to reap where they are not ready to sow and that’s their problem hence they would have given the APC a run.”
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