The candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the just concluded Lagos East senatorial bye-election, Tokunbo Abiru has described his victory at the polls as a reaffirmation of APC’s expanding political base in Lagos State.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had announced that Abiru polled 89,204 votes, while his closest rival, Babatunde Gbadamosi of the Peoples Democratic Party scored 11,251 votes.
The Senator-Elect in his victory speech on Sunday said the victory at the polls is the answer that APC’s unrepentant critics cannot contest in their wildest dream.
Abiru said, “If there are people out there, who still doubt the popularity of our great party; who do not reckon with our leadership in this political landscape and who still dispute our progressive approach to governance, our comfortable victory in the just concluded bye-election readily offers them an infallible answer.
“It is the answer the people of Lagos East generously delivered at the conclusion of last Saturday’s bye-election. It is the answer that resonates in their popular decision to give us their mandate.
“It is the answer that our unrepentant critics cannot contest, even in their wildest dream, given the credibility of the process that gave us the mandate.
Abiru also thanked the people of Lagos East for giving him their mandate, and he equally appreciated the leadership of his party, the All Progressives Congress for putting up a formidable political structure that helped secure the people’s mandate.
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Abiru said, “On this note, I wish to commend and appreciate our party leadership from the APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu; Chairman of Lagos APC, Prince Babatunde Balogun; all our leaders in the Governance Advisory Council (GAC) and all members of the State Executive Council (SEC) and State Working Committee (SWC) for putting up a formidable structure that again earned us the people’s mandate.
“Honestly our Campaign Council and all its Directorates have done a great job with the deft approaches they adopted to prosecute our campaign from the level of local councils and development areas to community engagements, street-to-street campaigns and house-to-house mobilisation, setting up meetings upon meetings with different groups of stakeholders in the five Local Government Areas (LGAs) and 11 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in our senatorial district.
“The creativity, energy and passion with which the Chairman of our Campaign Council, Otunba Kaoli Olusanya prosecuted our campaign was amazing. Otunba Kaoli worked tirelessly and seamlessly with the Vice Chairman of the Campaign Council, Alhaji Bode Oyedele and all heads of our Campaign Directorates to secure our party’s mandate.”
“In spite of the campaign of anger and frustration they prosecuted, the people of Lagos East generously gave us their mandate. This is perhaps the smoothest victory our party has secured in its recent history. We polled 89,204 votes, while our closest rival scored 11,251 votes. This outcome is no doubt, a reaffirmation of our expanding political support base, not just in Lagos East, but also in Lagos State at large. It is without doubt a proof of the degree of public trust we have earned in our party’s two decades or more in governance in Lagos State,” he added.
Abiru mentioned that “now is the time to translate all the promises we made into positive and tangible outcomes our people are expecting us to bring about” while reiterating his commitment to the campaign agenda. He said he will working to secure the much craved special status for Lagos State, and pursue policies that promote economic development.
“I commit myself irrevocably to the agenda I laid out before the electorate-offering people-focused quality representation; ensuring welfare of my constituents; working with my colleagues in the National Assembly to ensure special status for Lagos; promoting policies to improve national economic performance and financial sector development; implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); facilitating completion of all federal and state road projects in Lagos East; promoting ease of doing business; supporting the 5 for 5 agenda for police reform; supporting fiscal federalism and joining forces with colleagues in the Senate and members of the House of Representatives to ensure devolution of powers to the sub-national governments.”
“Within the limits of our statutory mandate, this is the time to make the aged smile; empower our jobless youths; minister to the vulnerable; secure the future of brilliant indigent children and support the implementation of the ideals of our party. To achieve these enviable goals, we are already in the process of establishing an Endowment and Empowerment Fund to actualize my private philanthropy.
“The Fund will implement different interventions we are coming up with in line with my agenda and the ideals of our party. Already, our team is perfecting the modalities for the implementation of all these intervention programmes. By the middle of January, we will unveil these programmes in full and begin implementation immediately.”
