Agbaje Preaches against Negative Campaigns
The gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, has advised politicians in the country to desist from negative political campaigns.
Agbaje, who said this while delivering a lecture titled: “Democracy and Governance in Nigeria,” at the 50th birthday celebration and book presentation in honour of the chief executive officer, RTC Advisory Services Limited, Mr. Opeyemi Agbaje, in Lagos, also said if elected, he would ensure the continuous development of the state.
According to Agbaje, negative and hate campaigns are harmful to the system.
“Negative campaigning is not something we must encourage. We want hear what the politicians have for, so I don’t think negative publicity is something we should encourage,” he said.
He urged Nigerians, especially residents of Lagos State to show more interest in governance as well as the democratic process.
Agbaje added: “Democracy is not at the point of voting, democracy is rooted in the whole process from the beginning, from when you form the political party, who are those that formed the political party? What are their goals? What are their values? Why did they form the party? Is it for good governance? Or is it to corner a share of the cake? These are issues that come up. Once that is wrong, there is no way, you are going to relate that to good governance.
“We have to be more interested in governance. Last election, we got calls from people that some people were cheating, that some agents were not around, but that is why we must all be agents. We must all be vigilant to guard against such things.
“If you really believe in the democratic process, why can’t you be an agent? If you do that, you will be helping democracy. What I am saying is that we are too much aloof in bringing about good governance or in institutionalising democracy. We need to do a lot more, we need to get much more involved at different levels. We need to get much more involved in even looking at what plays out.”
Furthermore, the PDP candidate called for tolerance among politicians, saying that everyone should be allowed to express his or her own opinion.
“As a democrat, how much space do you allow others to speak or to express themselves? You put up your posters and they don’t let the posters stay, so how much of a democrat are they? Such things affect the process because it means that you apparently have seen someone that is better and you just refuse to allow the public to appreciate him or her. You may have 10 posters only, but allow the 10 posters to stay,” he stated.
While allaying perceived fears by some Lagosians that if elected he may discontinue some of the policies of the present administration in the state, he said: “I am not going to change policies and projects or abandon projects if elected. That is the reality. For as long as you have projects, what you can do is to change a bit how it is done.
“Some people have said I will change LASTMA, but LASTMAhas an objective of ensuring free flow of traffic, so it will continue to be. Some have said I will scrap LAWMA, if I do so, how do we continue to ensure a neat environment? The light rail is something that is good, BRT is running, but we would do all these in ways that would be beneficial to Lagosians.”