The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Lagos State, Dr. Abdul-Azeez Adediran, aka Jandor, has debunked claims that 5000 members of the Jandor Lagos4Lagos Movement defected to the All Progressives Congress in the state.
Adediran made the statement during a press briefing in the Ikeja area of the state on Friday.
He described the claim by the state Deputy Governor, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, alongside other stakeholders of the APC, that he received some defectors from his (Jandor’s) camp on Thursday as a ploy to deceive unsuspecting members of the public.
Adediran said, “This briefing was called for me to tell the people of Lagos State that in Lagos4Lagos, we haven’t lost any of our members as a result of what was staged yesterday.
“Two days ago, we got wind of the drowning Lagos APC saying that they will be taking in members of Jandor Lagos4Lagos team. They said it is Jandor and Lagos4Lagos team that are defecting to the APC. It shows that in the state of Lagos, God has given us a brand that is now a tormentor of the outgoing APC government in Lagos State.
“That is why they are desperate and ready to do anything just to make them look good in the face of people or to discredit what we stand for. But another thing I want to call our attention to is that they said 5000 people were leaving and moving to their party, I am sure you saw what happened yesterday.
“Maybe the person that they contracted it to didn’t get people to bring to the venue because we have counted the number of people that they put our shirts on, they were not up to 50.
“What worries me is that those that you should respect politically like the Deputy Governor, Lagos State, who we thought was a better politician than the Governor, sat there receiving 20 people from nowhere and they sold that to them in the name of defecting.”
Adediran said he saw a very disappointing face in Hamzat during the event, adding that the action speaks volume of a desperate hegemony that want to continue to reign.
He said, “There is something that we are doing right and it is affecting them and they need to do anything to make them look good in the face of the public.
“But that is not where I am going, unfortunately, we heard several claims in that meeting yesterday and if you understand this game very well and if you speak about people defecting from one party to the other, you will be speaking about people with surnames.”