Lagos campaigns and intimidation

The report in ThisDay of 12 February, 2015 on the campaign visit of the ruling party in Lagos State, the All Progressives Congress (APC), led by Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, to the famous motor spare parts market at Ladipo makes a very interesting reading on the attitude of Lagos voters to the party in the coming April 11 governorship election in the state. According to ThisDay report, during the ceremony and visit, which introduced Akin Ambode as the candidate of the APC, the representatives of the traders in the market declared that the traders in the market would vote for the APC to make continuity the expected result of the election in Lagos in favour of the APC. But no sooner had the Lagos State governor and the Ambode campaign train left Ladipo market than shouts of “PDP … Power” rent the air and the traders started to dance that Jimi Agbaje of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was their choice in the governorship election in the state, and not the APC candidate, Akin Ambode, who was earlier introduced to them by Fashola.

When interviewed, many of the traders who pleaded anonymity said their leaders who spoke in support of Ambode in the state governor’s presence had no choice but to do so, so that the market could continue to function and they could earn their livelihood since anything to the contrary would lead to the government sealing off the market as it had done several times in recent times. According to these traders, they had made up their minds to vote for Agbaje and PDP because of the many multiple and duplicated taxes as well as the personal yearly opening and closing taxes on individuals rather than shops collected by the state and local government officials from the Ladipo traders.

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In addition, they claimed they enjoy no conducive or beneficial working and enabling environment from the state or local government as a result of the incessant and unpredictable taxes and tolls they often pay to the government and the “Area Boys” who exploit them while the government does nothing to protect them. Most painful to them are the roads leading into and within the market, which are in a dangerous and dilapidated state of disrepair in spite of the huge taxes they pay to government. Yet in spite of all these, they dared not show their resentment to the governor or the APC Ambode campaign team as they feared swift retaliation by government if they dared do so. That was why they could only celebrate and show how they would vote for Jimi Agbaje of the PDP after the governor left Ladipo spare parts market.

Curiously enough, this account tallied with the observation of Jimi Agbaje, the PDP governorship candidate, in his answer to a question at the prestigious Island Club where he had a chat with members of the club where his father, the former AGM public relations of Standard Bank, now First Bank, was club treasurer for 10 years. Agbaje had been asked how he would cope with the nagging and prevailing impression in some quarters in Lagos State that the PDP can never win the governorship election in the state. Agbaje countered that the situation had changed drastically in favour of the PDP in the state but people were afraid because of the fear of the state government power apparatus which is in the hand of the APC and which is quite vicious in using the power to intimidate voters to vote for it. He said that taxi drivers, market women, vulcanisers, mechanics and the common people of Lagos have switched massively to PDP and would say so privately and confidentially. They dared not, however, like the Ladipo traders, say so publicly or boldly because of state government intimidation that would make market women lose their stalls and vulcanisers lose their road space to work and earn their living.

Put simply then, Lagos State voters, though intimidated to silence now by the APC government in Lagos, cannot wait to have their say at the next governorship elections in the state and speak thunderously and loudly with their votes to say NO to taxes of intimidation and give their mandate massively to Jimi Agbaje, the PDP governorship candidate in the state, in the April 11 governorship elections. That really will be the just price of intimidation for the APC in the state it has ruled for the past 16 years.

Bode Emmanuel