Ahead of the February 3 House of Representatives bye-election for the Surulere 1 federal constituency seat, President Bola Tinubu has been called upon to prevail on his Chief of staff, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila to steer clear of alleged moves to impose his preferred choice, Mr Faud Laguda on the All progressives Congress (APC).

A group, the Progressives for Surulere (P4S), warned that the party risks losing the seat to opposition political parties if Gbajabiamila is allowed to have his way at the party primaries scheduled to take place at the weekend.

P4S in a statement signed by its Secretary-General, Mr. Akin Jones Oladimeji also frowned at the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dr Tajudeen Abass for allegedly working in cahoots with Gbajabiamila to impose a candidate on the party.

The group which is rooting for the candidacy of either Mr Kabir Caesar Lawal or Abdul Raheem argued that the development ran contrary to the ideals of not only the APC, by President Tinubu who is an advocate of a level playing field for aspirants jostling for the seat.

Justifying their claim, the P4S noted: “Everyone knows how we virtually lost both the House of Assembly and House of Reps elections in Surulere 2 Federal constituency to opposition before getting them back after onerous efforts; it took full blast support from Asiwaju to coalesce divided camps to work together and we only managed to win with some margin of votes and now he wants to impose a far less popular candidate.

“Everything that APC stands for – progressive ideals, hope for the masses, social justice, morality in politics and departure from impunity – are all being called into question when both the former and current Speakers took turns in showing bias publicly even before the APC primaries in Surulere 1 Federal Constituency; besides, can anyone from Lagos go to Speaker Abbas’ constituency in Zaria and do such in a race meant for people at the grassroots and must these two respected personalities toy with the idea of such imposition in an area where the ENDSARS protest against impunity drew so much vibrant support?

“Just few days ago, Honourable Gbajabiamila also brought two traditional rulers from outside our constituency to come and tell our people what to do while he publicly unleashed thinly-veiled threats and intimidation against Honourable Kabir Caesar Lawal whose crime is that he differed against Gbaja’s overreaching and self-centred order not to contest in this election.” (The Guardian)

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