Kunle Adelabu
Mr Aro Moshood Abiodun, the preferred aspirant of Ijede Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of Ikorodu Division, Lagos State, Southwest, Nigeria, for the Ikorodu Constituency II seat in the Lagos State House of Assembly, has charged the incumbent lawmaker representing the Constituency, Hon. Nurudeen Saka Solaja, to respect the existing rotational arrangement in the Constituency.
Aro Abiodun, who is popularly called ‘AMA’, also said that Hon. Solaja who is the Chairman, House Committee on Public Account (State), should prove that he is an ‘Omoluabi’ and an honourable man, by jettison his third term aspiration which is against an arrangement put in place by leaders in the Constituency decades ago to ensure even distribution of political power.
AMA, who emerged as the preferred aspirant among other eight others who are jostling for the Assembly seat from Ijede, said that Ijede will be going into the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election as unified force, should in case the incumbent insisted on contesting.
“It’s just for me to tell him that he is the originator protagonist of the turn – by – turn slogan and we need to appreciate him for that.
“He actually came up with it in 2019 when I contested against him in 2019 as the PDP candidate. He kept clamouring everywhere that it’s turn – by – turn and that others should allow Imota to take its turn and that was what I was told by the Apex leaders and traditional rulers in Ijede who stuck to the arrangement and stated that they can’t betray Imota even though my father is from Ijede and my mother is from Imota.
“I want to also appeal to my brother (Solaja) that he should show that he is truly ‘Omoluwabi’ and play down on his ambition this time around. Everything that we do now will be history and references would be made to them tomorrow. He should avoid the negative reaction from the coming generations. I appeal to him to reconsider and accept that it is Ijede’s turn and he will be remembered as a man of honour for that. Thank you”, AMA appealed to Solaja.
AMA, while thanking his co – aspirants for their support since his emergence from the shadow primary election, added that Ijede will be going into the party primary as a unified force.
“Well, I will not be right to say that I am the winner, rather, we are all winners, I mean all the aspirants that participated in the shadow election, including myself”, he said.
“The motive behind the shadow primary is just to have a common front going into the primary election proper coming up May 20, 2022. As you know, we have a very good political arrangement in Ikorodu Constituency II which zones the Assembly seat among the three major councils – Ijede, Igbogbo/Bayeku and Imota, for eight years each.
“The rotation arrangement is now coming back to Ijede. If not for the incumbent that is insisting on running, the nine aspirants that came out to contest for the Assembly seat could have just gone to the field and sort it out. It is because we don’t want Ijede to lose out that made us reached a resolution that we all must have a common front and as a result, it was unanimously agreed that anyone that wins the shadow primary election would represent Ijede at the primary election and will be supported by others”.
