A group named Agege youth vanguard has thrown its support behind Abdul-Ganiyu Obasa, the son of the current speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly Speaker as the next chairman of Agege Local Government Area.
The group also made it known that they have raised the Five Million Naira fee for the purchase of the All Progressives Congress nomination form for him during a press conference in Lagos on Thursday.
The meeting which had several prominent youths from the Agege community in attendance was held at the Agege Local Government secretariat hall.
The group’s Coordinator, Ismaeel Garba, addressed the press, stating, “The chief purpose of this gathering is to announce to you that we have a serious interest in the forthcoming local government election in Lagos in respect of Agege local government.”
He emphasised that their interest was not for personal gain or to turn Agege into any political leader’s “private fiefdom,” as some might suggest.
Garba highlighted the importance of grassroots management for national development, saying, “We will all agree that the change we desire in Nigeria can only be achieved when the country is in good hands; and key to the development of a nation is its grassroots management. Therefore, for Nigeria to get out of its present hood, our local governments must get it right.”
He further explained the group’s decision-making process, “To us in Agege Youth Vanguard, the journey to the promised land starts with ensuring that the council does not fall into the wrong hands as regards the next Chairman and seven councilors who will manage the affairs of millions of residents and business operators that make up our community. Like they say in Lagos political parlance, ‘Itesiwaju Eko a ju mo Jo se ni,’ we on our part did a thorough background checks on aspirants both for chairmanship and councillorship in all the wards based on information available to us; and arrived at the following decisions:”
He said, “That the best man for the council’s Chairmanship job is Abdulganiyu Vinod Obasa.
“That his academic record beat that of all other chairmanship aspirants across all the parties. For your information, he has Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield England, and a Masters Degree in Accounting and Finance from Aston University Birmingham, England. A PhD student at the Babcock University, Abdul-Ganiyu is an affiliate member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA).”
“That the others’ aspirants work experience are no match for his, which includes: Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), Providus Bank Limited, and Parallex Bank Limited where he was Head of Performance Management and Strategy. As we speak, he runs a private business, a going concern in real estate.”
He further said, “That none of the chairmanship aspirants has his records in terms of community service in Agege. This is marked by his football academy, VINOD, which, as we speak, has four football talents in Europe on the brink of signing professional contracts.”
Garba also said, “That the fact that his father is the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly must not deny Agege its best bet to reach a new height.” And “That we will mobilise all the good people of Agege, including his indifferent father, to support him.”
Garba concluded by stating, “We have put our money where our mouth is by contributing N5m among our members to buy the APC Nomination form for Abdul-Ganiyu to enable him to contest for the party primary. In the same vein, seven councillorship aspirants across all the wards who we find worthy to manage the affairs of our local government with him will be given free APC nomination forms by us.”
The group eulogized the current and outgoing chairman of the council, Alhaji Ganiyu Egunjobi for his sterling performance at the helms of affairs, explaining that “Agege on his watch has witnessed tremendous development in terms of infrastructure and human capital,” and urged him to “keep it up.”
