2023 ELECTION: HOW ADEJOKE ORELOPE ADEFULIRE UNDERMINED APC INTEREST IN ALIMOSHO FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY (PART 2)

 

HE Hon Princess Adejoke Orelope Adefulire, Senior Special Assistant, Sustainable Development Goals Office in the Presidency, has demonstrated to astute minds that her political actions and inactions are motivated by personal interests. 

She adopted a mindset that caused the All Progressives Congress, and consequently Lagos State, to lose the February 25 presidential election in the Alimosho federal constituency.

Group Politics 

In Alimosho APC, Orelope Adefulire had instructed her aides to demonize political groups in the wake of the start of the official campaigns. She insisted that the Party had outlawed all groups and that only party executives and meetings were permitted. 

She was however brought back to reality when she learned that her Alimosho Veterans Group also had to be disbanded. 

The only reason Orelope Adefulire and her companions were so vehemently opposed to groups in the APC Alimosho federal constituency was to defeat the BATCO Mandate Group, led by Alhaji Ayinde Abdullahi Enilolobo, the outgoing APC Lagos State Organizing Secretary, and the (Bola Ahmed Tinubu Campaign Organization).

Orelope Adefulire and her supporters were forced to concede defeat after learning that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is supported by more than 5000 organizations across the country, all of which have been officially registered with the APC Presidential Campaign Council Support Groups Directorate. 

In order to house her Alimosho Veterans Group, Speaker Mudashiru Obasa's Alimosho Liberation Movement, and Chief Sunday Babatunde Aboyade's Alimosho United Front, Orelope Adefulire, a former deputy governor of Lagos State (2011–2015), quickly withdrew from the path and founded Asiwaju Solidarity Movement (ASM), the umbrella body. In all six councils in the Alimosho federal constituency, she rented and provided secretariats for the organization and appointed an executive structure for ASM.

This development did not sit well with ALM or AUF, whose officers and members are still miffed about not receiving a ticket for the general elections (who hitherto had rented their Secretariat audaciously facing Orelope Adefulire office in Egbeda). Afterwards, she bought them out and incorporated them into ASM's executive structure. 

The BATCO Mandate Group was not and could not be included in this arrangement by the member of the Lagos APC Governor's Advisory Council because all three groups were founded by disgruntled individuals who, up until a few months ago, were dyed in the wool officers and members of BATCO Mandate Group. The only reason for their departure was that they lost continuity in public or party offices, and they saw an opportunity in the Orelope Adefulire fold.

The cancellation of Lagos West Tickets 

It did not sit well with "Madam SDG" that Orelope Adefulire lost the party's nomination for the Lagos West senatorial district to HE Dr. Idiat Adebule, a victory that was enthusiastically welcomed by her side. As the national assembly election for the Alimosho federal constituency was approaching on February 25, she dropped her public support for this ticket. 

Meetings of the Alimosho APC Campaign Council's Stakeholders 

In accordance with the state and federal campaigning styles, Alimosho APC created a calendar of campaign activities to interact with significant constituency stakeholders.

In addition to constituency meetings and a nationwide door-to-door campaign, the 12 Day stakeholders meetings included sessions with artisans, community development associations, community development committees, religious leaders, ethnic group NGOs, students, people with disabilities, youth councils, royal fathers, and former political office holders. 

After being briefed and signing up for these campaign activities and stakeholders meetings, Orelope Adefulire only attended the first session, refusing to co-finance these meetings, and neither did she ask for the meeting's report in order to make interventions.

On the grounds that their safety could not be guaranteed, she prevented members of her ASM from attending the constituency meeting and the nationwide door-to-door campaign in Alimosho. However, her action sent the message to other party members that she did not particularly care about the safety of Alimosho's APC Mainstream members in general. 

When her biological brother, the party's candidate for the Alimosho State House of Assembly, now-elected member Luqmon Olatunji Orelope, and his campaign team interacted with the Alimosho Mainstream without incident, party members were incensed. They questioned why the ASM should be prohibited from mingling with the Alimosho APC Mainstream in the run-up to a crucial election.

Lateef Ibirogba (APC South West Organizing Secretary) who attended the constituency meeting was granted all the privileges befitting a party leader of his status, frontline ASM leader Alhaji Babs Kareem who also graced the event was honored by party members and officers in attendance.

25 February 

Elections for the national legislature and presidency are 24 hours old. Alimosho APC discovered that the names of her collation agents had been altered after they had been submitted. Nine of the twelve members of the new list were ASM nominees. 

The Party ignored the issue and asked that these people head over to the INEC office right away to keep an eye on the distribution of sensitive documents. For this assignment, only one of these ASM nominees showed up. 

The Party also learned that only ASM nominees had been altered from polling unit agents.

Alimosho APC entered the election without party agents in the 163-polling unit G North ward until 12 o'clock when improvised party agent tags were issued to APC agents. 

The Labour Party (LP) and several Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) agents were fixed by ASM in Ward H. This was found out when Party supervisors called out their names from the list provided to them; their brazen justification was that they had left the party after being enlisted by the ASM. 

Chief Sunday Aboyade, the vice chairman for Lagos West and the only party state officer for Alimosho, was unfazed by these occurrences as he sat comfortably at home.

While results were being compiled, ASM members insisted on giving their group's officials the result sheets rather than their ward chairmen. Several polling unit results are still lacking as of this writing. 

The ward collation officials provided by ASM were unprepared and had to rely on others to complete the collation for them because they were unfamiliar with the newly established polling units by INEC. When there are polling places without results, Hon. Adeshina Lawal in G South approved a result. There is no need for Hon. Taiwo Akindehin to collate the results in order to fact-check those of INEC or other parties, according to him. He will wait for the collated results from INEC's collators.

At the LGA collation center, security personnel beat Babatunde Alani, an APC LGA collation agent, to a pulp. Hon. Tope Ogunyemi, an APC Ward C1 collation agent, and Hon. Damilare Olohunlugo also suffered the same fate. Due to ASM sending Hon Sola Popoola instead of Hon Alani, these three party members were brutally treated for impersonating. It was Alani who attended the party-organized training for 20 LGA collators. 

The opposing party had a field day controlling the atmosphere and behavior at the LGA collation center once these party agents were out of the way.

Agents from LP followed Alhaji Enilolobo's fact-finding and rescue team back to his home after they left for the collation center.

With shots being fired, two armored vehicles swiftly appeared at the street's entrance and exit locations. The military crew, directed by a Brigadier General, was tenacious and forceful in their search of Enilolobo's residence's buildings. To everyone's relief, they discovered no evidence of guilt. 

Governor Babajide Olushola Sanwo-attempts Olu's to intervene were rejected by the military authorities, who instead asked that Alani, Ogunyemi, and Olohunlugo be released from the hospital and held at the police station. 

LP and PDP overpowered INEC and APC agents as all of this was happening and called Alimosho LGA for LP in the presidential election. 

Orelope Adefulire, Lateef Ibirogba, Babatunde Aboyade, and ASM leaders did not care to report any of these physical assaults, threats, or overt intimidations .

Leaders didn't even bother to notice these events, step in to help, or phone to check on the assaulted members' wellbeing.

To be CONTINUED…

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