Neglected South East and South South youth members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who jogged to Lagos in support of the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Senator Bola Tinubu, have fallen on hard times.

Investigations by News Express showed that they are starving and some of them falling sick and lacking money with which to take care of themselves. Having run out of money, they have been sleeping in the open outside the Lagos State Government House, Alausa, Ikeja, in the hope of being received by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

As at the last time News Express checked earlier today, Saturday, October 15, 2022, the men and women were cooking under a big tree outside the Government House premises and spreading their washed clothes on its branches.

Some of them were found with swollen legs as a result of their jogging from Yenegoa, the Bayelsa State capital, with the expectation that Tinubu would receive them upon their arrival in the country’s former capital – a distance of 360 kilometres (224 miles).

As exclusively reported yesterday by News Express, the dejected Tinubu supporters arrived Lagos full of hopes on Tuesday evening, October 11, but had yet to be received by the APC presidential flag bearer or his emissaries.

News Express learnt early this afternoon that some of Tinubu’s aides had contacted the joggers’ Coordinator, Mr Samuel Adaga, and promised that Governor Sanwo-Olu would receive them. But nothing like that has happened.

Adaga, who sounded desperate, lamented to News Express this afternoon: “We are sleeping in an open place under a tree. We are starving, as we don’t have money to eat; the food we are eating is just by the grace of God.

“We don’t have money to treat those who got injured during the exercise. Many of them that have swollen legs, we can’t treat them – we only use ROBB on them but it’s not working.”

Asked what motivated them to embark on the long trek to Lagos, Adaga said: “We just love the man Tinubu; that is why we took the risk.”

The youths, under the auspices of South-East/South-South Jogging for Tinubu Campaign Initiative, constituted a team of fitness enthusiasts to embark on the exercise.

The jogging was flagged off at the Bayelsa State Secretariat of APC by the state APC Chairman, Dr Dennis Otiotio, enjoying warm reception by APC leaderships at the corridors of the Yenagoa-Lagos route at Delta, Edo and Ondo and Ogun states.

They arrived Nigeria’s economic capital a day ahead of schedule, with the Coordinator, Mr Samuel Adaga, telling the media that the expedition would terminate with a reception by Tinubu.

The 25-member team, among them eight females, drew at least two representatives from each of the 11 states in the South-East and South-South, and executives of the group.

Update news