THINKING ALOUD... With MUKA POPOOLA Lamentations of Citizens Yetunde and Olamide of Ifako-Ijaiye PDP (1)

Two distraught Lagos PDP members from Ifako-Ijaiye chapter reeled out some kind of troubling messages few days ago. 

Someone who calls herself Yetunde Babatope cried out on the run-up to the facade - our cheap, laughable lies and foolishly undisguised public deception - that we packaged in the name of primary elections to pick our party's councillorship and chairmanship candidates for the upcoming July 12 local council elections. The other person, one Olamide Olatunji, squealed after the sordid act had been done. 

You may have to go and look for the posts made by citizens Yetunde and Olamide and read them dispassionately for you to understand the frustration behind their thoughts.

Let me help you with a snippet of Yetunde and Olamide's lamentations.

They both addressed their concerns to our leader, Chief Olabode George. 

You might not have met or never knew Yetunde and Olamide in the Lagos PDP, just as I can't remember anyone by those names. But the issue really is not about the messenger, it is the message. 

Reading through, I could easily relate to their concerns, I'm similarly troubled by their worries. I think most members would be touched by their lamentations too. 

What were the lamentations of Yetunde and Olamide about? 

The clear inference by Yetunde in her open letter to Chief Bode George is that some fellows were dropping his name that he had anointed certain persons to be used as the candidates for the local council elections in Ifako-Ijaiye LGA. In effect, that was to shut out other members who might wish to contest for the party ticket.

Yetunde warned that there would be consequences if Chief Bode George allowed that to happen and used his high position in the party to impose on them any candidate that's not acceptable to the majority at Ifako-Ijaiye LGA.

The primaries are over. Candidates have emerged. What happened at Ifako-Ijaiye LGA after Yetunde's lamentation? The question to ask is if Chief Bode George had a hand in how their local primaries were conducted. 

The answer appears to be the reason for Olamide's own lamentation. 

Olamide cried that the persons who won the primaries for chairmanship in Ifako-Ijaiye were denied being the candidates. 

By some dramatic circumstances linked to the influence of our leader, Chief Bode George, he says, the actual winners of the primaries were pushed out, and some other persons who didn't even show up at the venue where LASIEC officials were present to observe the process were handed the party tickets. Because of that, he vowed never to have anything to do with anything coming from the Lugard office of Chief Bode George.

It would not matter whether you're at Ifako-Ijaiye or Amuwo-Odofin, Apapa or Lagos Island or you are in Ikorodu or Somolu LGA. Go look for Yetunde and Olamide's troubling posts on how Chief Bode George was reported to be practically involved in picking whoever must be their candidates at Ifako-Ijaiye, read again with open mind, and you might realise that they actually spoke to the worries that have been killing you silently within the party in your own LGA too.

Chief Bode George might not really know, the lamentations of Yetunde and Olamide are not just for crying foul over nothing. A great number of our members are agonising seriously under the weight of your influence. They are the ones that Yetunde described as the voiceless.

But unlike what a lot of people do say about Chief Bode George, I won't be unfair to say he is the only problem of the Lagos PDP. No, he is not. 

Neither is he the only reason our party is being  called *"customer daadaa ni"* to the Bola Tinubu gang. 

In case Chief Bode George has not heard, the Lagos PDP is today being derisively mocked as "customer daadaa ni", because of our consistent failure to win any major elections in Lagos State since 1999. 

There are other A-grade leaders and fringe influencers who likewise subvert the process and collectively weaken the party structures. That is where I believe Yetunde's lamentation is not deep enough.

However, the truth is that what Yetunde and Olamide were lamenting about at Ifako-Ijaiye happens virtually in every local government at different times. It has happened during congresses and primaries in the past.

A lot of non-performing members do get into office and they're sadly linked to Chief Bode George's style of using his influence to impose his anointed persons on the party.

So, what the lamentation of Yetunde is about, by my own understanding, is a wake up call both to Chief Bode George and other influential persons who operate as diaspora leaders to see the pains of the ordinary party members and make amends.

While we individually ruminate over the lamentations of Citizens Yetunde and Olamide, and what should be our way out, I wish you a very lovely day... till we meet again tomorrow.

*© MUKA POPOOLA

*Senior member, Agege PDP*