The Lagos branch of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) South South Forum is intensifying efforts to ensure the victory of non-indigenes it plans to field in the elections next year.
It is also working towards the return of President Goodluck Jonathan for a second term.
The group of nearly 20,000 members plans to hold a rally in Lagos on May 29 to sensitise both South South and other non-Lagos natives to queue behind the dream of a “truly democratised” electoral process in the state, which has a huge non-indigenous population.
The forum’s Chairman, Sunday Ekanem, said for long, non-Lagos indigenes have failed to use their numerical strength to restructure the power configuration in the state’s politics.
“This docility has surprised me a lot and that is why the state government most often promulgates unpopular policies, gets away with them, and afterwards returns to power. But all that will change in 2015.
“The PDP will not just make an impact, it will constitute the government both in the executive and legislative arms, with non-indigenes having a significant presence,” Ekanem enthused.
He maintained that after the Igbo, South South indigenes constitute the largest group in all sectors of the Lagos economy and they should have a say in the way the state is run.
On the charge that factionalisation has contributed to election losses by the PDP in Lagos, Ekanem said: “That was before, not now. Every party has had squabbles and put them behind it. This forum will soon become the fulcrum of PDP activism in Lagos.”
Ekanem expressed the hope that Jonathan will contest and win the presidential ballot next year, in spite of the inability of Abuja to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency.
He added “Jonathan is a God send to this country, but unfortunately, Nigerians don’t realise this. Otherwise why is the whole world supporting him, even coming here, the heart of the terrorists’ den, to hold the World Economic Forum?
“Do you think those world figures are daft and do not know the benefits of his policies to the nation or are you reckoning with those who are blind and not know anything?”
