Says ‘I have no personal disagreement with the president’

By Olasunkanmi Akoni & Monsur Olowoopejo

LAGOS—Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos, who is the Director of Buhari-Osinbajo Presidential campaign fund-raising committee, yesterday, enjoined President Goodluck Jonathan to direct the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, to re-open the shut Small Messages Service, SMS, platform designed to raise funds for the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential campaign.

Fashola stressed that the directive became necessary in compliance with last week’s peace agreement entered into with candidates of other political parties in the February polls.

Fashola who made the remarks at Lagos House, Marina, yesterday explained that within the first day of opening the platform to the public, over 4,500 people had made donations via text messages before it was shut down by the NCC.

A letter from the NCC entitled “Political and Partisan Advertisements” dated January 19, 2015 and addressed to the Managing Director of Emerging Markets Telecommunication, which Fashola released to the media, warned all service providers to steer clear of partisan advertisements.

The letter reads in part; “The commission wishes to advise all Service providers to avoid running political advertisements/promotion that will portray them as being partisan. The commission will not hesitate to sanction any Service Provider that will flout this directive.”

But Fashola accused the NCC of double standards, brandishing another letter with which the same commission gave an approval to another service provider-Wagitel Communications Ltd, in 2010 prior to the 2011 general elections, to use a similar platform to raise funds for Goodluck-Sambo presidential ticket.

He said the action amounted to dictatorship and intolerance on the part of President Goodluck Jonathan and his party, adding that such distasteful media censorship after the president has benefited from the same GSM platform was absolute use of power.

“The point to make first is that as a political party and campaign group we have not received official communication from NCC directed at us. As I said they were using the platform of business houses and commercial concerns. So these letters were directed to them to interfere with their commercial transactions. But the subsequent and ripple effect is that our campaign suffers by their interference in a service they are contracted to render.

“The reality also is that apart from the letter from NCC, the Minister of Communication, Mrs. Omobola Johnson has personally been presurising and calling the operators of telecodes putting pressures on them not to run our messages and I think this is very low.

“So, for a government and a party, PDP, that is preaching peace and there is no resort to the judiciary, this has not happened in the history of Nigeria that people can have access to court.

“All of us must really do what is necessary at this time to ensure that we lead this great country to greater height. Beyond all this, I see a glorious dawn.”

I have no personal disagreement with Jonathan

Also, Governor Fashola, yesterday said the country will not be divided if President Goodluck Jonathan loses the election, even as he said; “I have no personal disagreement with him (President Goodluck Jonathan).”

Meantime, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the state, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode has promised to design strategies to discover more artiste, athletes and footballers from Ajeromi-Ifelodun Local Government.