Lagos and Impact of Dressing on Elections
Lagos is the heartthrob of fashion and dressing in Nigeria. The reason is not far-fetched, given the cosmopolitan nature of Lagos and the fact that it is the natural destination of all Nigerians who believe, like Dick Whittington in the famous English story of Dick Whittington Goes to London, that its streets are paved with gold.
But quite sincerely, Lagos is not only the cultural and commercial capital, it is the fashion capital of Nigeria.
It follows therefore that politicians and those who aspire to lead in an environment like Lagos must know at least, that their dress sense and lifestyle must be fashion-sensitive, beyond just dressing simply. They must be conscious of a dress-andstyle-discerning audience watching them critically to evaluate their dress sense and, perhaps, judge them positively or otherwise consequently. They need not dress to kill but they must dress to please always or have themselves to blame. They must always be conscious that their lifestyle and dress sense can give or lose votes for them. This has been especially so in the Lagos State governorship elections.
Nowhere is this more obvious than on the two bridges in Lagos where pictures of the two governorship aspirants adorn the Third Mainland Bridge and the Eko Bridge.
However, the dress sense of the two candidates says a lot about their personalities and perhaps their political design on Lagos if and when elected.
Jimi Agbaje of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) looks calm, confident and handsome in his posters as he dons a traditional Yoruba Aso Oke cap in colours of wine and blue. His posture in the picture is focused and business-like and from that angle he could be going to either a big party or a high mass church service or both. Of course, he could be headed to an embassy cocktail party or even a state ball. He was dressed for all seasons in that simple agbada and colourful aso oke cap.
Definitely, the PDP governorship candidate has a high and sensitive dress sense that would make Lagosians proud if elected into office, come April 11, 2015.
The picture of his APC rival for the governorship, Akin Ambode, is however quite flashy and fashionable in a high sense on the two bridges. Ambode was in a flashy white jacket and had a very broad grin on. He looked set for a social party or could be going to a night of carousing. The jacket looked quite expensive and is bound to be, given the information in diplomatic circles that at a briefing with some diplomats, it was a bemused foreign embassy official who whispered to Nigerian journalists that the watch the APC governorship candidate was wearing was worth about $35,000 dollars in a major branded, high-brow US watch store. Certainly the impression that the picture of Akin Ambode has propelled in the posters promoting his candidacy is that of a wealthy and extravagant candidate splashing money on dresses and suits to create a positive effect of leadership and that again creates another insight on his mind and leadership style when and if elected into office as governor of Lagos.
Akin Ambode will certainly spend a helluva lot of tax payers’ money on expensive dresses just to show an impression of being in charge if elected to power. Such a dress sense is really a psychological mode of inferiority complex to hide a short-coming and deceive the voting public. The Lagos State electorate must not be deceived by the shameful Bola Tinubu succession and selection machinery, which uses tax-payers money to dress up its candidate in borrowed robes and expensive watches to make an impression of power and presence of mind on the unsuspecting public, when the opposite is the case. Akin Ambode has been a hard product to sell against an intelligent and well- tested PDP candidate like Jimi Agbaje of the PDP, hence the desperate APC resort to dressing up Ambode expensively and extravagantly to kill in posters just to continue to rule Lagos with impunity . The people of Lagos definitely are fashionsavvy enough to see through this mind-boggling fashion and dressing fraud and will definitely vote for the calm and confident posture of the PDP candidate , Jimi Agbaje, whose picture and stamp of authority adorn our two bridges with the confident smile of the man to be voted as the next Lagos State governor on April, 11 2015.