Ladoja is anti-masses, APC alleges
The All Progressives Congress (APC), Oyo State chapter, has said that the antecedents in government of the Accord Party leader and gubernatorial candidate in the state, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, do not show him as a lover of the masses but a man driven by ambition and selfish quest for power.
It made this known in a release issued by its Director of Publicity, Mr. Wale Sadare.
According to the party, whenever Ladoja claims that he is driven by the love for the masses, he forgets that his foray in governance was like yesterday and the people can recollect vividly how he implemented masses-hating policies and programmes.
The APC said that of particular mention should be made the former governor’s ban of pilgrimage to holy land and how he arrogantly failed to appoint members of boards of parastatals while he was governor.
“Whenever he mounts the rostrum and tells the mythic tale of how he had lived his life fighting for the cause of the masses, he takes for granted that we could have forgotten so soon his anti-people atrocities while in office. Here was a man who, against popular demand and pleas, refused to constitute boards of parastatals where many politicians and the people of the state derive their livelihood. In his demonstration of acute wickedness, he also banned pilgrimage to the holy land,” the APC said.
The APC said that it stands against reason when a man who tried to block the joy of the people as he did while in office now lays claim to be a man of the people.
“Pilgrimage gives the people of Oyo State a lot of joy. Apart from the spiritual fulfillment it gives people and the opportunity they have to accomplish one of the five pillars of Islam, only naïve people think that pilgrimage is tourism. Unfortunately, the Ladoja government was not naïve. It rather disdains the people and could not see reason why common people would be sent to the holy land by government,” the APC said.
According to the party, the Ladoja government sowed the seed of violence and crisis that eventually rocked the state due to its penny-pinching approach to state funds, especially in the constitution of boards and parastatals.
“Ladoja obstinately refused to constitute the boards. Politicians agitated and suffered due to his selfish stance but he didn’t bulge. Those who agitated eventually coalesced in Molete where Chief Lamidi Adedibu held court. That was the beginning of the chaos and violence that swept the state, consuming hundreds of our people in the process,” he said.
