LASAA, APC and Campaign Impunity By Olu Adeboye The All Progressive Congress (APC) goes around talking about change, corruption, impunity and accusing the PDP of all types of malfeasance. It is curious that society and the media allow the party get away with this empty propaganda without scrutinizing its own record relative to its hype and propaganda. What for instance is the APC leadership’s record in relation to anti-corruption? Is the former governor of Lagos State Bola Tinubu a paragon of virtue in relation to corruption? Why is the cost of a kilometer of road construction higher in Lagos and other APC states than makes sense even to the World Bank and other international benchmarks? How come Lagos and other APC (and its predecessor parties) states have NEVER prosecuted ANYONE, not a single one of their officials since 1999 for corruption? Does it mean corruption is non-existent in APC states? The APC is quick to bandy around the word “impunity” but it is one of the most guilty of such excessive and unquestioned behavior. The APC enjoys equal access with the PDP on federally-owned media organs but does the APC reciprocate such civilized and democratic conduct? A particular breed of impunity is now underway in Lagos State! The state-owned Lagos Advertising and Signage Authority (LASAA) is using its official powers to willfully deny the opposition PDP candidate access to campaign media, while facilitating its masters free and unbridled campaigns! The LASAA waited until the cacophony of APC candidates during the party’s primary flooded the state with all sorts of posters, and said nothing! Immediately the APC primary was over and PDP candidates posters began to emerge, LASAA suddenly remembered its “statutory obligations” and started to flush away the campaign posters of PDP aspirants. And that was just a foretaste of what was to come! Once the main campaigns started, LASAA’s conduct became more capricious and undemocratic. The agency left APC posters untouched while targeting only the posters of opposition candidates for removal. The actions of the authoritarian agency got so bad that the Lagos State Commissioner of Police had to issue a public warning to LASAA to allow both parties a level playing field. Yet un-shamed and un-repentant the agency typical of its masters’ propaganda and bold-face insisted on carrying out what it described as its “statutory duties”! Such crass impunity!!! It is in the area of billboards that LASAA has most used its “statutory” powers in an undemocratic, totalitarian and uncivilized manner. This writer has learnt that LASAA has been intimidating outdoor agencies who wish to carry images and messages of the PDP candidate Jimi Agbaje into refusing what would have been commercial business for these firms. Even several firms which had collected money and mounted images of the PDP candidate have been forced by LASAA’s threats to cripple their businesses to return funds to the Jimi Agbaje Campaign Team. Many of these brow-beaten organisations have been so scared that in some cases they have been unable to offer any sensible explanations for their induced behavior. These are the type of people who have “owned” Lagos since 1999 and who now regard themselves as “Eko” itself. They speak of themselves in the third person, “Eko fe lo sun”; “O ti re Eko”; (Lagos wants to go to sleep; Lagos is tired) and now regard the state, its lands, its riches, its roads, its taxes and all of its benefits as their private property, while sending some pittances to the weary citizens of the state. Now they also regard all the billboards mounted by private media companies in the state as subject to their whims and caprices! Lagosians must not allow this impunity to continue. Olu Adeboye is a writer based in Lagos.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 21:51:36 +0000
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