By Olanrewaju Adesanya
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ojodu Local Council Development Area of Lagos state, has officially flagged off its campaign for the July 24 local government election, as the candidate for the chairman’s position Mr. David Olusegun Odumbaku takes on the baton.
At a well attended unity rally held inside Ogba market in the heart of Ojodu LCDA, the incumbent Chairman Mr. Julius Oloro presented the party’s flag to the preferred candidate for the chairmanship position and the councillors of the various wards in the council to herald the electioneering campaign .
Oloro, who counseled all loyalists of aspirants in the primary election held May 29th, to sheathe their sword and cease posting abusive comments on the social media about preferred candidates or leaders of the party. He noted that the leaders at various cadres in the locality have sorted out their differences and as such that should put paid to mud slinging of any form within the party.
Addressing party leaders and supporters, Oloro said the party is united behind David Odunmbaku, while also assuring voters that the party will claim more than 20,000 votes on the July 24.
“We are all one at Ojodu, everything has been settled. This is how I was presented the flag and now I am presenting it to him (Odunmbaku) today, I wish him good luck,”.
“Segun Odumbaku is our preferred candidate,so we should all rally round him. We are no longer fighting at the top,let all those in the grassroots team up for victory.
“I have the mandate to deliver,whoever is fond of abusive comments against leaders should cease fire from now.
In his remarks, David Odunmbaku thanked Hon. Oloro, the Ojodu APC party Chairman, Hon. Kayode Ajakaye, other party leaders and supporters for their support.
Odunmbaku pointed out that his plan is to change the narratives in terms of health, education, agriculture, youth and social empowerment.
“My experience in governance at the local government level, being the Secretary at Ikeja Local Government and currently at Ojodu LCDA. Apart from that, my passion and love for the people which runs in my family and obviously, I have the right foundation both in terms of educational trajectory and experience to take on the challenges of modern-day governance.”
“At the moment, a statutory 70 per cent of the budget goes to capital projects. We have already firmed up social intervention programmes designed to meet the specific needs of our people in Ojodu, especially the elderly, the youths, women, entrepreneurs, and even those that are employed and want to acquire additional skills. This category of persons will heavily benefit from our social intervention initiatives.
“In collaboration with Lagos State Ministry of Transportation. We have three hubs in Ojodu Berger, Grammar School and Ogba. We want to build on what has been done to create local economy around the parks by pushing people to the three clusters,” Odunmbaku said.
“Health and environment are intertwined and as such we will do all possible to manage our environment in line with the policies of the state government to safeguard the health of residents. We will work on better roads, more schools, more public health facilities, and so forth. I mean, the infrastructure in Ojodu must be topnotch so that the council becomes a reference point for people coming from outside,” he said.
Odunmbaku advised the party leaders and supporters to follow government guidelines on the coronavirus pandemic that’s ravaging the world. “Third wave of COVID-19 is here, we must continue to follow government protocols on the pandemic. The Delta variant is dangerous than others, we must all take precautions.”
“In terms of agriculture, the way to go for our youths is agriculture and how do we get our youths interested in agriculture? We will do this by coming up with modern ideas that are technology-driven and make agriculture attractive.
Now, a lot of our youths are constantly on their mobile phones. With that, we can get our youths interested by providing revolving funds or we can have like Ojodu Mart where agric foods are subsidized for the less privileged in the community,” Odumbaku affirms.
