Council appointments: Ex-LASAA MD Sanusi protests exclusion of supporters

“For the next four years, you’re, by virtue of your second term unanimous ratification, expected to continue to steer the ship of this great party. The decision of the party’s national leadership to give all first term party positions’ holders a second opportunity is commendable.

“However, your leadership’s handling of Ojokoro Local Council Development Area (LCDA) affairs where I belong is uninspiring. You think whatever decisions you take against anybody or group is final, simply because the buck stops on your table on issues of our party in the state.

‘’Hitherto, my personal resolve as a peace loving team player has been to allow sleeping dog  lie, but your consistent provocative handling of Ojokoro LCDA party issues is one of the reasons for this change of heart. The last incident was the newly-released Ojokoro non-inclusively odious supervisory list.

‘’My second reason for doing this is inspired by an English philosopher, John Stuart Mill’s address at the University of St. Andrews in 1867, where he admonished: ‘Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.’  I can no longer sit by and allow wrong decisions, with your routine detrimental approval, prevail in my beloved Ojokoro that I have been living for over 28 years, including my staying-put in the area while meritoriously serving our dear state as MD/CEO of Lagos State Signage & Advertisement Agency (LASAA).

‘’As a professional in politics, this letter becomes pertinent to put wrongdoings in my area on record and to prevent professional politicians touting your leadership backing from further inflicting their divisive and injuriously avaricious plans on our party members in Ojokoro—in line with Mill’s warnings.

‘’Digressingly, immediately after the highly disputed local government primaries’ results of last year, I still recollect that you promised that inclusive steps will be taken to assuage aggrieved stakeholders. Let me state, for the umpteenth time, that I won the party primaries, but was denied the ticket, and l took it, like other law-abiding stakeholders, in my strides.

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‘’Now, the list of supervisory councillors has been released, and as far as Ojokoro is concerned, the names on the list neither reflected inclusiveness nor fair balancing as earlier promised by your humble self. The list is clearly one-sided and an affirmation of public insinuations that your leadership is prone to supporting members of a particular group over another. Kindly note that you’re a state party chairman over all APC members in Lagos State and not only for members of your alleged group. Doing anything contrary is tantamount to compromising your oath of office. And precisely this is what you’re condescendingly doing, but should desist from, going forward in the collective interest of our great party.

‘’Your person was accused by analysts sometime last year of having peopled membership of the Y2025 local government electoral committee with members of a particular political group of which you’re accused of being a prominent member. Most currently serving local government councils’ chairmen are known members of the group you’re accused of belonging to, presumably not because they won the primaries. Too bad.

‘’However, the newly released supervisors list of Ojokoro absolutely negates the spirit of inclusivity that you promised our stakeholders when they were openly denied their chairmanship mandate in the middle of last year by your assembled electoral committee.

‘’Also, during the just concluded congress, your leadership ignored the Ojokoro petition sent to the party secretariat because of an erroneous claim that it was statute barred when the contrary was the case.  Yet, nobody has publicly denied that the Ojokoro list was riddled with names of second and third termers when the APC law clearly excludes such party members from further local government/ward exco positions. The bickering over this is yet to be resolved, and now you have come up with this unacceptable and surreptitiously guided supervisory councillors’ list in Ojokoro.

‘’It’s my fervent request that you withdraw this obviously biased Ojokoro list and kindly adjust it so that it can truly reflect your promised inclusiveness. Ojokoro APC members see you as our state chairman-to-all, not a select few from your touted group.’’