‘ Inclusion Will Resolve Political Quagmire’
Achieftain of All Progressives Congress ( APC) in Lagos State, Ahmed Olajide Oseni, has said that the safest way to unlock Nigeria’s political quagmire is for diligent and responsible citizens to participate actively in politics. Oseni, who is also a chairmanship aspirant for Igando/ Ikotun LCDA, Alimosho, in the state expressed the hope that such inclusion would ensure that the governance priotises people’s welfare rather than selfish interest.
While insisting that people’s participation in the electoral process would go a long way in solving the socio- economic challenges in the country, Oseni, who is also the Chairman/ Managing Director - Tour de Ville Nigeria Limited, stated: “Political orientations start from the right to vote. How many people understand the importance of voting, a lot of people in this country sell their votes due to abject poverty. People are no longer voting from their conscience to save society; that is why a good man hardly gets to power.” He noted that vote buying could be tackled through political orientation and poverty eradication, even as he remarked, “we have to orientate people on the evil of vote buying to society.”
The founder of Hope Of The Masses
Foundation, told journalists that his passion for the less privileged motivated him to participate in politics so as to guarantee a formidable and beneficial economic status for the citizenry.
“To be candid, if the government is unable to tackle the problem of poverty by empowering people, political orientation will fail and when political orientation fails, the society will fail.
“People will never vote with conscience or interest in the nation. They will only consider their personal interest, their immediate problem rather than considering the interest of the nation,” he said.
Oseni decried the culture of imposition of candidates, noting that candidate selection is a major cause of intra- party conflicts, which is usually borne out of incompatible interests catalyzed by the selfish nature of party leaders.
His stated: “Imposing candidates on people has been the agitation and complaint of a lot of people. Using my party as a case study, the national leader of All Progressive Congress ( APC) tends to be a man that has the interest of the nation at heart.
“He is a kind of man that does not make a decision alone, he believes there is a leader everywhere and he never decides a leader for any locality. In APC, leaders are picked according to the interest of the people.”
The APC stalwart sees imposition as a collective crime of leaders of different localities without the knowledge of the apex leader, arguing that he ( the leader) might be acting on misleading information.
“The issue of candidate imposition is always from party leaders not the apex leader because party leaders select delegates due to their personal interest, considering their own personal benefit while assuring apex leaders that the entire community accepts the delegate,” he said.