LAHA2015 members during one of their solidarity rallies

Daniels Ekugo.

Pledging its loyalty to the All Progressive Congress and its leadership, structure, former aspirants to the Lagos State House of Assembly in the last election, known as Lagos State House of Assembly 2015 (LAHA2015), has reiterated its call on support from all Nigerians irrespective of the party affiliations to help move the country forward.

Nohoesu Yenukunme, Assistant Treasurer, LAHA 2015, told TheNEWS: “The change we (Nigerians) desire as promised by the APC requires our collective effort to make it a reality. We must, individually and collectively, make sacrifices where necessary to help the APC leadership move Nigeria on the right path of development and growth.”

According to Yenukunme, “The recent insinuations that there are crisis in Lagos APC is laughable. We have looked at the issue critically and know that there is no crisis at all, we are one big family. There is no crisis at all in Lagos APC, we are just learning things in a different circle, there may be disagreements and that doesn’t count as crisis. The LAHA 2015 project strongly believes that with our national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, our party stalwarts definitely will mend fences.

On the body’s plan for the party and the hope of the over 250 members, Yenukunme stated: “Even while we were not given the ticket to the house of assembly, we are together to move the party forward, agitating for what is right for us and also to support what the party structure has in stock for us. We believe in the leadership of the party, it is not about ourselves.”

What about dissenting voices? Yenukunme retorted “We have been hearing about people going about begging or extorting money from politicians. We believe they are not from our body, because none of our member is a hungry man, we are not political jobbers and we wish this is just a rumour because our body seeks to move the party forward irrespective of what he or she feels. We believe in party supremacy we are sending a warning signal to anybody doing so to desist from such.”

Praising the efforts of the national leader in the struggle to make a new Nigeria, Yenukunme urged every progressive minded Nigeria to support the administration of General Muhammadu Buhari, Governor Akinwumni Ambode and the APC: “We want to believe in the ideology of the party and wants this to be precedence to all elections. We urge all progressive minded Nigerians to come together and let’s build a new Nigeria. Our father and national leader, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu is a man of honour and integrity and we believe in him, we support him. He is just like a father to us. We are behind him in all ramifications.”

For Obale Bola Rafiu, Treasurer of LAHA2015, “You see, in constitutional democracies, the party is the rallying point for politicians who share similar political opinions and ideas. The party develops a manifesto with a view to implementing it to improve the lives of the people. Nigerians should come together to move the train forward. As the ruling party, APC is strongly committed to ensuring the implementation of the party’s manifesto to improve the lives of the citizenry. To do this properly and successfully, the party believes that there should be strong support from party members, especially our legislators, to assist the APC-led administration to meet the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians.”

On the group’s relationship with the national leader, Rafiu said “Asiwaju’s immeasurable support to us is very cordial. We are here to show our solidarity to the father in him, we are solidly behind him, and also support the party right from electioneering to the finish irrespective of any grievances which have been surmounted, we are giving our best and respect to Asiwaju for his fatherly role and we believe that he is a man of integrity, an institution of himself. We are his disciples and we abide by his leadership role.”