Group Tackles Lagos Pastor, Says Discussion On Lagos Guber ‘23 Pre-Mature
A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), the Black Youth Vanguard (BYV), has described any discussion about the 2023 governorship in Lagos State as pre-mature, needless and out of place now, adding, “to say the least, very diversionary.”
Leader of the NGO, Comrade James Adeyemi, in a statement in Lagos on Monday, was reacting to a report credited to a cleric, Pastor Sam Ogedengbe, who said that, “a Muslim should emerge as the Lagos State governor in 2023.”
Pastor Ogedengbe, who is the National President of the All Christian Leaders and Ministers Forum, was reported to have made the statement at the weekend at Abule-Egba, Lagos during his group’s annual convention, thanksgiving and graduation.
He was further quoted to have said, without doubt, he was sure the next governor would be a Muslim disclosing that, he was one of those who clamoured for a Christian governor after the end of Governor Babatunde Fashola’s tenure, which produced ex-Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and incumbent Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
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He insisted that, “without being economical with the truth,” he and other Christian ministers and leaders would not be ingrates, but would take the necessary line of action by supporting a Muslim governor.
Concluding, Ogedengbe emphasised that, “We Christian leaders and ministers hail administrations in the state since 1999, but we will insist that Sanwo-Olu’s successor should be a Muslim in the interest of justice and equity.”
However, the concerned NGO wondered how someone who claimed to have been a former Senior Special Assistant to the Lagos State Governor on Christian Religion, could fail to do his research very well, reminding that, “both Tinubu and Fashola, who were governors back to back between 1999 and 2015 spent 16 years in office and not eight.”
Besides, the group was of the conviction that, “what matters to the good people of Lagos State now is good governance that Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu is providing for his people,” pointing out that, “any discussion about 2023 in Lagos now is needless, useless and diversionary.”
The NGO, therefore, warned all idle minds to get themselves busy with some other productive ventures and steer clear of any business that could distract the workaholic governor from the good job he started in 2019, asserting that, “Lagos has grown beyond pedestrian logic of religious and tribal sentiment.”
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The statement added that dividends of democracy is the first consideration for a civilised society and whoever produces that is eminently qualified to be state governor, reminding that, “when Tinubu and Fashola were at the helms of affairs in Lagos, people felt the impact of the government to the extent that nobody bothered about which religious sect they belonged to.”
Although the NGO admitted that Ogedengbe has the right in democracy to express his views on matters of national interest, it, however, pitched its tent with Governor Sanwo-Olu’s Special Adviser on Christian Religion, Rev. Bukola Akindele, who advised that all hands should be on deck to further support the current administration in rebuilding the state, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic and #EndSARS protest, reminding the needless havoc the exercise wrecked on the state that called for rebuilding.
