Igbos Extract Commitment from Agbaje

Mr Jimi Agbaje

Dissatisfied with what they described as their unfair lot in the hands of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government in Lagos State, the Igbos under the aegis of Aka Ikenga, the umbrella group of Igbos in Lagos, sunday extracted commitment of a fair bargain from the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, Mr Jimi Agbaje.

The meeting, which took place last night in the Victoria Island home of Ambassador Greg Mbadiwe, extracted the commitment of better treatment of Igbos in Lagos, from Agbaje.

In an opening remark, the president of the Aka Ikenga, Mr Goddy Uwazurike, had said the forth coming election will be a contest in which the Igbos will have to battle for freedom from certain individuals who have so-to-say, annexed the state.

Agbaje, who spoke for about 20 minutes, ran through the prisms of his campaign programme and promised fair and equal treatment to Igbos, in terms of appointment, employment and business.

He particularly promised that he will attend to all the needs of traders at the Ladipo Market where he will build a pedestrian bridge across the Oshodi-
Apapa expressway to “save our people who are daily dying on that road”.
He also said he will build car parks and toilets to make business transactions in the market to be better, so the traders be better contributors to the growth and development of the state.

He emphasised that the talk about the fight for freedom is not only by non-indigenes, but also by indigenes, “because we have a situation in Lagos where there is so much vested interest where one or two people have had to hold all of us in bondage. And we have to fight to be liberated from it”.

He condemned the practice of government appointing “Babaloja” (market leader) from outside, stressing that “in all these things we are in the struggle together”

Earlier, Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Co-ordinator in the entire southern states, Mr Peter Obi had told the gathering that Jonathan is their best bet given that Buhari has no economic blue print and has become old and ineffective, stressing that the issue of corruption was not peculiar with the Jonathan administration, pointing out that it is a society’s problem as people are too keen on celebrating suddenly rich people without bothering to check what they do.

Obi noted that Jonathan’s tackling of the historical fraud in the distribution of fertilizer as well as refurbishment of railway lines are some indications of his performance capacity, declaring that “I believe he will favour our people.”

The group however expressed disappointment at the unfulfilled promises of the Jonathan administration noting that Jonathan administration’s failure to build or maintain roads in the South-east axis of the country was a great disservice to the people of the region.

“We feel very disappointed that more than four years after, we cannot drive from Enugu to Port Harcourt, or from Onitsha to Enugu”, one or the members complained.