…MY LABOUR
PARTY STORY PART 1
Immediately I gave him the ticket almost effortlessly, without the usual politicking and horse trading, he started misbehaving, and making unhidden/uncultured moves to push me aside from his project.
I had thought I would help him get the ticket, and the project would be our project. The project of the party and the good people of Lagos. I had thought we would run things together to achieve the success together.
My avowed mission then was to win Lagos for Labour Party, so that I can make a name for myself as the State Chairman who wrestled power from the ruling party.
I didn’t know much about him. I didn’t even bother to know. Badly enough, I didn’t even know he couldn’t write/speak the language of the state he wants to govern.
He hid his nature from me. I didn’t even know he has a popular Igbo name. I only knew that his wife and mother are Igbos, which to me, would even make our party to get good votes from the Igbo population during the election.
But, immediately he got the ticket, he started running things all alone with his people.
He sidelined almost all the Yorubas and prominent leaders and elders on the platform, and suddenly became purely Igbo inclined.
Nothing Yoruba was ever attractive to him again. He stopped listening to me, or anybody in the party – not even the elders and leaders I reported him to, on few occasions.
He eventually did away with me. And, when I reported him to the elders and leaders in our party the first time, hear what he rudely said to me, his State Chairman as at the time:
‘I am so mad at you right now Mr. Salako. Am I owing you anything, or sharing your wife with you?! Do you think I don’t have a mind of my own, when I decided I want to come out to be governor. You can’t be sounding like a godfather in my life on this project. I don’t need a godfather, or anybody to keep telling me what to do. I have a mind of my own. Please, tell me. If I am owing you anything, I will pay you. Am I owing you anything, or what?! I am so mad at you right now. Am I sharing your wife with you, or owing you and your wife anything?! …”
This response was openly in the presence of all the leaders and elders that were present at the meeting on that fateful day.
The chairman of the leaders/elders forum of our party then, who presided over the meeting that day, Chief Sumbo Onitiri, also eventually saw what I saw about him in the course of the project, and backed out at the dying minute with disappointment.
He is now accidentally a cheiftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
Salavador, who was the apex leader of the party in the state, also backed out along with many other prominent stakeholders, including many of the LGA/LCDA Chairmen of the party.
I also stayed on my own throughout the period, and voted for Babajide Sanwo-Olu to continue to run Lagos State as progressively peaceful as he has been running it over the last 3 years.
Throughout my stay in office as the State Chairman of the party, vindictively he never got my office involved in anything; gave me anything, or did anything with me.
I got no ‘shishi’ or any encouragement to run my office, or anything as at the period. I was completely sidelined.
All he was doing was working with my detractors for me to be removed as the State Chairman of the party, and he and his deputy, Princess Abiodun Oyefusi, eventually got me removed about one month and few days to the February 25 presidential/national assembly election with the help of Dayo Ekong, the current caretaker chairman of the party in the state (whom I nominated by myself to take over from me, because of my sincere love for her and the value I built for what we shared, when I was in office) and Sam Okpala, the insatiable and domineering state secretary of the party.
What was my offence?!
Because, I reported him to the leaders in the party to tell him to do the right thing with the party, which he never did.
He told all of us to our faces that he didn’t trust us. He said we should stay away from his project. He said he had his own people he wanted to use to run his election, and we all simply obeyed.
He didn’t want to be a godson to Salako, his state chairman, but all along, Chief Bode George, the leader of the PDP in the state and his wife, were all he was listening to, and not anybody else in the Labour Party in the state.
So, he preferred to be a godson to a PDP leader anti-partily as a Labour Party member and governorship candidate, but told the State Chairman, who fought so hard for him to get the ticket to go to blazes.
He was never Labour Party inclined at all from his operations, but purely PDP. He was just doing whatever he liked in the party, and not listening to anybody.
He ran his election alone, without the involvement of many of the prominent political stakeholders in our party, and God almighty simply corrected the mistake I made by working so hard, and by fighting almost all the powers that be in our party – both in Lagos and Abuja – for him to get the ticket to be the governorship candidate of our party.
He simply lost the election to Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
That margin of win by Sanwo-Olu, wouldn’t have been that geometrically exponential, if all of us had been involved.
Violence, or no violence on March 18, there was no way he would have won the ruling party in the state, because almost about 70% of all the prominent field work tools in the party, were out of his project, including me, the man who led the team that built the political structures of the party in the state.
When Labour Party won the presidential election in Lagos State on February 25, all of us in the party were committedly and passionately involved.
But, on March 18, it was more of only him; his people and the emergency friends he imported from abroad at the tale end of the project.
God is not stupid!
He does not reward betrayals; habitual ungratefulness; operational arrogance and bad leadership character with ‘holy’ greatestness.
With what I know about him, he would have simply come to mess up Lagos, and set its progress 10 years behind.
That guy is characterless!
He is so mannerless, arrogant, proud, very deceptive, self-centered, childish; mean-hearted, unforgiving, operationally vindictive and immature in almost everything.
I made a mistake by working for his type to be the governorship candidate of our party, but God in His infinite mercies, corrected the mistake on March 18.
I could remember that one of the aspirants offered to give me 30 million naira and a brand new Jeep for him to get the ticket but I turned down his offer.
I refused and insisted on him, because I thought the only way my party could win Lagos was to use a youth/or a middle aged person, who could be so attractive enough to the electorate in the state.
‘Am I sharing your wife with you, or what?!’
What an insult from a boy, I suffered, and paid so dearly to establish and sustain as the governorship candidate of the Labour Party in the state.
How can you be the candidate of a party in an election and you were treating members of your party, as if you were doing them a favor to work on your own project.
He was treating the state exco of the party anyhow, with so much disdain; he wasn’t relating almost well at all with the national/state assembly candidates of the party; he was calling the bluff of anybody, including the national chairman of the party (He hardly talks to Julius Abure about anything, and most times, picks his calls).
He treated the LGA/LCDA Chairmen of the party with so much disdain and hatred, because they were the structures left behind by Salako.
He became overtly irritated by anything that had to with Salako in the party.
To the extent that, he did not give any of the chairmen ‘shishi’, or supported them with any logistic resources to operate in their domains, during his governorship election period.
Rather, he handed over the little resources he expended to strange people, who were not part of the operational organogramic structures of the party, and yet you want those local government chairmen to go and face the political force of the ruling party in the state to win for Labour Party.
Ask any real member of the party, who worked closely with him, during the campaign period, he would tell you the story of how he ran it so shabbily, stingingly, self-centeredly, arrogantly and unculturedly like a saddist and a miserable school boy in politics.
I made the mistake, by working passionately to give his type the governorship ticket, but God corrected the mistake in his own interventional way on March 18.
-Olukayode Ezekiel Salako,
State Chairman Emeritus,
Labour Party, Lagos State.
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