APC Unity Forum mobilises for 2019

The next general election will hold next year. However, in politics, there is a saying that two years is like two months. Against this backdrop, many politicians usually start strategising in advance for election when it is as far as two or three years away. This was exactly what played out when some notable political bigwigs with enviable credentials in Ajeromi-Ifelodun (AJIF) Local Government Area of Lagos State gathered to resuscitate a moribund body known as AJIF Constituency Two Forum.

The event witnessed the convergence of who- is-who in Ajeromi-Ifelodun Federal Constituency. They included former members of House of Representatives,Lagos State House of Assembly, council chairmen, councilors and some political kingmakers in the All Progressives Congress (APC) stock.

The party faithful wanted to plan ahead to prevent the repeat of the  successful onslaught by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015 elections when the APC was defeated.

During the last election, the PDP won the two seats in the Lagos State House of Assembly and the only one for the House of Representatives. Though the two members of the PDP in House of Assembly-Dayo Famakinwa and Fatai Oluwa of Constituency1 and Constituency 11-had since defected to the APC,  the PDP member of the House of Representative, Rita Orji, a lawyer, has not  defected.

Orji is planning to re-contest on the platform of the PDP in 2019.

The forum which was re-inaugurated by the APC chieftains had all the trappings of strategic brainstorming geared towards strengthening the APC to achieve victory in next year’s polls.

The chairman of the forum, Alhaji M. Azeez, said: “In the last general elections, we lost to the opposition party so we don’t want to lose again. This strategising is also for Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode because is going for second term; and we want to do our part to ensure his victory.

“So, today’s gathering is for re-organisation because our opposition party is rising seriously against us and the constituency is what we normally use as a bullet to wage our political war,” explained the Chairman of the forum, Alhaji M. Azeez.

Azeez’s position was also reinforced by a  councilor, Akin Ojojo, who said the gathering was meant to forge a united front.

“The journey of 1000 miles starts with a step and you know as we start today we will soon get somewhere before 2019”, Ojojo noted.

In his submission, the grand patron of the forum, Chief Michael Dele Fayemi, who was a former member of House of Representatives, equally noted that the gathering was meant to ensure that what happened in 2019 at the Federal Constituency did not repeat itself. He also assured that the gathering was to nip in the bud the leadership tussles that led to the party’s defeat in the last general elections.

“We have a good and able leader in person of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu. When the time comes he knows what to do”, Fayemi assured, just as he hailed Governor Ambode, for what he described as his spectacular performance in the state.

Former executive chairman of the council, Kamal Bayewu; former deputy speaker, Lagos House of Assembly, Kolawole Taiwo; former member, Lagos House of Assembly, Ladi Balogun, chairmanship aspirant in the last year local government election, Ayo Fayemi, were among the array of politicians that graced the event and their messages followed the same line which was the need to close rank so as to achieve success in 2019.

The large population that turned out for the inauguration of the forum was treated to occasional political lyrics by the womenfolk, while sumptuous meals were not in short supply. But it did not end there as on the following day, the forum distributed raw rice and food other items to the constituency members for their Christmas and New Year celebrations.

The forum, which promised to occasionally conduct sensitisation and political education has the following people at the helms of its affairs: Chief Fayemi, (grand patron); Chief T.A. Ogunoiki, (patron); Alhaji Ganiyu Arogundade, (patron); Alhaji M.A. Azeez, (Chairman); Felix Egbayelo, (Secretary); and Ojojo as PRO.

 

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