Chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Lagos chapter, Otunba Segun Adewale popularly known as Aeroland, has expressed disappointment over the just concluded Lagos East Senatorial district election, where the party fielded Mr. Babatunde Olalere Gbadamosi called BOG as its candidate against the declared winner Mr. Tokunbo Abiru of the APC.

The chieftain said the embarrassing result can be linked to the way and manner the election was handled, lamenting that he didn’t see the cohesion that was needed to deliver the candidate for the party.

He further said that while some leaders and party excos were saying that the candidate has no grassroots connection and supporters, all that should have been put aside after he has eventually emerged as candidate of the party as the goal and focus should have been to first win for the party rather than capitalizing on such irrelevant talk, and other complains.

Adewale alleged that the party leadership in the state did not at any point call for a General Assembly of party members to discuss the strategy for the election, either private or publicly, and the list of agents to guard the votes were also not done properly.

Querying the outcome, he said, “logically, how can PDP turn out such low votes in about 74 wards in Lagos East, comprising 5 local governments, in a party that each ward has nothing less than 20 Exco members and over 1,000 members, positing that if it’s only party members and excos that voted, the result should not have been so bad like what we saw as the outcome. Out of the about 20 excos in each ward and Local government areas, they have friends and family that should vote, while each of the 1000 members in our wards should also be able to influence at least a member of their circle or family to vote.”

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Adewale said something was fundamentally wrong with the entire process internally, calling on stakeholders to audit what happened that led to the poor outing, so as to guide against a repeat in the future elections.

Recall that in 2015 election, PDP made a resounding mark in Lagos, where they produced house of representatives members and members of Lagos State House of Assembly, although some of them have defected to the ruling APC, while some Reps members are still in PDP.

Adewale said, “some leaders of the party did not work to support the candidate for reasons best known to them, but that is not the best thing to do. Members of House of Reps from Lagos should have rallied round the candidate, because his victory could have also had a positive effect and boast the morale of party members in the State ahead of future elections.”

“The insinuations out there is that there are lots of PDP leaders on the pay roll of the APC, but the only way to end this is for the party leaders to begin to show responsibility, and get more serious with the business of the party and how it can achieve victory.”

He, however, called on the leadership of the party, to urgently step in, to rejig the Lagos PDP structure, if at all they want the party members to have faith and be hopeful that they can win future elections.

Vanguard News Nigeria