Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran, popularly called Jandor is the Lead Visioner of Lagos4Lagos movement. A few days back, he spoke to City People team about his plans to make sure that the next governor of Lagos is a Lagosian. He also says he plans to be the Lagos governor. This is the 2nd part of the 2 part interview. Read on.
Can you give us background of you and brief history of your growing up?
I was born 43 years ago in Mushin. I’m going to be 44 next week or thereabout. I had my primary and secondary education in Mushin. And I went to a tertiary institution in Ibadan. I had the opportunity of studying in abroad, Howard University, Vienna and Oxford. I started my business, Core Media Services Limited as you know in the year 2008. In 2013 I started Core TV. I’ve got other business interests which I used for other things. You know in this part of the world you have to diversify. So I have Datanet Project Service Limited which I used in lifting crude and all of that. And I have been in the corridor of power for 18 years, as you know. Not as elected or appointed official but as a consultant, who has worked at every layer of government, but deliberately understudying the structure. In Lagos for example I consulted for the office of the Auditor General when Ambode was the AG, and Lagos State Internal Revenue Service when Tunde Fowler was there, and office of the Attorney General when Adebayo was there.
This gives me enough space to garner more information about what goes on, aside from the fact that I also consult directly for the governor of Lagos State then for 8 years. So it puts me in a vantage position to understand what was really going on in the state. And on the political side of it, I picked interest to know why every other person who is trying to do something can’t get it. And then realise that it has been the most unpardonable sin to aspire in the state of Lagos, for you to think you are qualified to run.
Somebody must call you before you can be given, even if you are not popular, it doesn’t really matter. So the moment you step out that you want to be, you are marked, that you can’t win. Because you shouldn’t have a mind of your own.
And why many of them that have tried failed was because they are always relying on the man’s structure. And the moment he pulls the plug, you are going nowhere. That is why we started by creating our own structure, even though it is a sin to create a structure. Remember that it was when we started that they came with a pronouncement that they are banning justice forum and mandate forum. But Lagos4Lagos is a registered organization, you can’t just ban a structure that doesn’t belong to you and the last time I check, we are entitled to belong to any association according to the provision of the constitution.
A lot of people what to do what we are doing now, but they never expected that we will pull this huge stunt, you can’t talk about 2023 in Lagos and not talk about Jandor.
There are suggestions that you are playing the Awori card to get to the heart of Lagosians
Well, I don’t know about me playing the Awori card, but it is just a situation whereby we have a true son of the soil, of which we control 17 from the 20 local governments in Lagos and who has never produced a governor before, and one of them decides to throw his hat in the ring, what do you expect at that point? That’s why you see all the Obas, they have never been this hopeful. That’s why our people are all out; they don’t care what anybody will do to them, that’s why you’ll see open endorsements, when they called them into meetings and ask why are they supporting this boy, they just answer, he’s our son. So Awori card is playing itself. It is what it is. We have never had an Awori Governor, and they see this as our best shot and we are working around it. And don’t forget there are also some aggrieved politicians in Lagos who are looking for somebody to take them out of their situations. Let me cast your mind back to 2018 when the party was factionalised into two. That didn’t survive because there was no destination, had it been there was someone who showed interest, it would have been a rallying point. So it died natural death. This time there is a destination and there is the front figure.
Let’s talk about the PDP who came visiting you, what’s the suggestion?
I think it is something any reasonable or serious party will do. The moment you see a crack in a wall, what you do is to latch on it. And I think that’s what they are trying to do, to safeguard their interest. They assured that they can give me their platform if things go wrong in the APC. It’s a proposal and we are looking at it. I think about two days later, the progressive governors heard about it and I heard governor Yahaya Bello calling me and gave me one million and one reasons why I should not leave the APC, but we ended that conversation with me asking him, ‘I’m sure you want to be president of Nigeria?, and he said yes. But if APC denies you ticket and the PDP gives you the ticket, won’t you collect? He couldn’t answer and then we left the meeting.
Have you considered the possibility of technicality during the elections despite having the numbers?
Like I said, if you see the manner that we are moving from day one, we are doing it as if tomorrow is the election, that’s first putting into considerations all these technicality that you have mentioned. I will keep saying it if we are in a group and the moment we smell rat, there’s no point waiting on that group, move, to an equally viable political party who we can take our structure to join theirs and we get this done.
So because it’s a game that I myself have understudied for a very long time, all of these are things that we have put into consideration. If you look at what is happening within the APC today, nobody has ever challenged the status quo the way we have challenged it. That’s because we understand the game; we know what the problem is, and we know how to tackle the problems. They have never been this jittery. That’s because we are doing something right. We might even be the one to play a fast one on them.
But they still have the control of the party structure. That is what they want you to believe. Today, I will tell you that we have taken over the party. All of that, nobody will know until we put everything to test. It is only at the end of the formation of the NWC that we will know truly who the owner of the party is. NWC is the king here. It is the same tool that they used when Oshiomhole was there. Look at what happened now. Dapo Abiodun didn’t have a structure. He didn’t even know the ward chairman, but he picked the governorship ticket. That’s because they have Oshiomole. The same with Ambode here. The guy that came said there was no election, but the next day he released the result that was given to him. That’s because they had Oshiomole. Look Zamfara, look at Rivers State. It was because they had Oshiomole.
So the moment the game turns and they also lose out in getting who controls the NWC. They wont waste one minute, because they understand the game. Because at that moment, it is done. So its too early to say who gets what. But for us, we look at the whole thing, we’ve looked at things that are going on with the APC. the manner in which our congresses were held, several court cases and the Mallam Buni’s factor, I would have expected that we played safe with Mai Mallam Buni, since we got that will from the supreme court, but now we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder, but some of us will not rely fully on it. We will find something to do.
There was nothing like exodus during the last election. All of them were just playing a card to see how they can get what they didn’t get through nomination. Politicians sponsors candidates to other parties to get the ticket and win, then they come back. Clearly, the only one you can speak about is our own man, because we didn’t participate in the local government elections because we know how it is.
But we encouraged some of our guys to go underneath and vie for councillorship and I tell you today, in the entire 377 councillors in Lagos we have 191, unknown to them. It was supposed to be 192, the guy was a PDP guy in Iwaya. They discovered him as Lagos4Lagos boy and so they disqualified him. So he moved to PDP and he beat them. He won, so we have them in all the local government, we have gotten to deep that they don’t even know if the person siting close to them is a Lagos4Lagos person. So there’s nothing they want to do. 2023 is just a game off for them. Irrespective of everything, we are going to beat them.
Send Us News, Gist, more... to citypeopleng@gmail.com | Twitter: @CitypeopleMagz
