PRESS CONFERENCE: Address by Jimi Agbaje, Lagos State Governorship Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), at PDP’s Public Show of Unity at Eko Hotel, Lagos on December 24, 2014.
His Excellency, Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Architect Namadi Sambo, GCON
Honourable Leaders of our Great Party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)
Great Members of Our Great Party
Leaders and Members from Ally Political Parties Here Present
Esteemed Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen:
PREAMBLES
This is a defining moment in the life of the biggest party in Africa, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). For once, in the history of PDP in Lagos, we are approaching a common opponent, as one solid, united and powerful force.
Through the intervention of His Excellency, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, and His Excellency, our amiable and cerebral Vice President Namadi Sambo, Lagos PDP has overnight achieved what the opposition thought would be impossible.
Through the intervention of these two great leaders of our country and of our party, all the aspirants in the governorship primaries of Lagos State have agreed to smoke the peace pipe and gather under one banner. We listened to the voice of Nigerians, Lagosians in particular. Nigerians asked us to give and take and compromise. We have given and taken and compromised. Nigerians challenged us to put our house in order. And we have put our house in order. We can tell you that today, PDP is one big, happy family.
All differences, all animosities, all divergences, all factions, are hereby declared dead and buried. Let me thank all my brother and sister aspirants who made this day possible. Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, Ambassador Tokunboh Kamson, Eng. Deji Doherty and Mr. Babatunde Gbadamosi. I thank you.
It is my pleasure and privilege to speak to you today as candidate for the governorship of our dear state, Lagos State, on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Today a new chapter is being written in the annals of PDP Lagos. A chapter of unity. A chapter of power. A chapter of hope. A chapter of change. A chapter of victory. And by the grace of God, in 2015, PDP will record resounding victory in Lagos.
All the different voices in PDP Lagos have come under this big, strong and formidable PDP umbrella. We are together, and the opposition party should tremble with fear.
Despite its several name changes, the opposition party continues to produce these same unpalatable scourges in the life of Nigerians. A chameleon may change its colour several times, but does it change from being a chameleon? Lagosians have come to realize that a political party may change its name time and time and time again, but it still continues to stand for the same principles that people rebel against.
Lagosians, weep no more, PDP has brought you the ultimate solution to your pains.
A MISSION FOR CHANGE, RENEWAL AND TRANSFORMATION
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press, my mission is to serve, to renew and to uplift Lagos State into a true global Centre of Excellence and to transform the lives of residents of Lagos based on my abiding commitment to my city and my state; the state in which I was born, in which I have lived all of my life, in which I have practiced my profession and carried out my business, in which I have made friends and formed abiding relationships, in whose politics and policies I have been an active participant since 1998, and which has given me and millions of others an opportunity to realize our potentials in a diverse, bustling, thriving, growing metropolis. My mission is to ensure that ll our people have a real opportunity to realize their aspirations and to fulfil their God-given potentials. And that such an opportunity id not circumscribed for any reason –not because of lack of access to qualitative, functional, skills-based education, not because of poor health or because of the absence of economic opportunity –jobs, market, power and other infrastructure, not because they live in cults where cult groups kill their children and where dirt and squalor blight their daily living, and not because of leadership that appropriates the commonwealth of our people for their own selfish ends, while returning pittances to our desperate people.
My mission is to provide people-centred leadership that focused on transforming the lives of all our people, not just ours or those in our narrow circle of friends, business partners or political loyalists. My mission is to provide leadership that our people can TRUST!
To my dear Lagosians, over the next two months, I will be engaging with you again as I seek your votes to enable me do the work that needs to be done for you. I will come to you promising integrity, providing a vision, leading a policy-based campaign; and my objective if and when you put me into office with your votes will be to positively impact the life of every resident in Lagos State, irrespective of age, sex, religion, ethnicity, community or class. I will seek to provide opportunity and prosperity for all. I will transform Lagos State form its global rating as one of the least livable cities in the world to one in which rich and poor communities have good schools, where willing citizens can find jobs, where everyone has affordable and qualitative education, where transportation and infrastructure is world class, where our people no longer live in urban slums and collapsing buildings. This is where our lives, property and businesses are secure from not just criminals, but also from rapacious and extortionate officials. Your mandate will be for positive change, and sustaining the freedom and democratic aspirations of our people so that feudalism and monarchy is not surreptitiously substituted for our democratic constitution in substance, if not in form.
If and when you elect me as your Governor, my mission will be to build TRUST between the government and the people –absolute, unimpeachable, transparent trust. I will be personally accountable to you for every day of my tenure. And I will be personally accountable to you for every day of mytenure and I will NEVER betray your trust.
This is our mission as we commence this campaign and we are confident that we shall prevail.
CONCLUSION
Your Excellency, Vice President Namadi Sambo, on behalf of all the PDP Lagos governorship aspirants, and the entire leadership and membership of our great party in Lagos, I, Joseph Olujimi Kolawole Agbaje, promise that, beginning from the presidential election, to the governorship election, to the legislative elections, we shall deliver Lagos State to PDP massively. So help us God.
Thank you for your attention.
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