The lagos political warfare is disheartening.
One should readily gravitate to a young man In particular an Architect becoming a new Governor of Lagos except that the brilliant chap has lost the basic credential after publicly claiming to be unable to speak yoruba at all thereby appealing to unjustifiable repulsive sentiment that an aspirant to a high office of a Governor does not need to speak the language of majority of mass of people he wishes to govern The lack of the ability to interface with indigenous locals seeking to speak English to market women and local farmers all across the length and breadth of Lagos is far from being acceptable norm.
It’s also false perception to claim that Lagos does not possess indigenous community ruled by Obas and Bales all of whom speak Yoruba Certainly this project may well be dead on delivery out of ignorance of dynamics of power and place of language as tool of communication putting the candidacy miles away from Alausa.
Even the youthful and pro religious base enjoyed at the last election by Labour party will be greatly decimated by the illogical posture that speaking the language of the indigenous people is not a asset to rule over them It’s most simply contemptuous of the majority of mass of the people to be governed
Mrs Ireti Kingibe is the Senator elect for FCT speaks the language of communication in FCDA ! It will therefore not be suprising if the political pendulum massively swings against the Labour candidate on Saturday The calculation is not right this time for labour party.
Yes to compete for a seat in the North or in the East one it is incontestably advantageous to first learn to speak the language of the indigenous population; for example Tiv in Benue, Kanuri in Maiduguri and Igbo in Anambra
Even in Britain the current Prime Minister is every inch a Briton by tongue.
My advice is that the candidate should now take this lesson and be ready to package his candidacy to guarantee desired victory in future elections in view of his worthy credentials of youthful freshness and abundant energy .
Titus Ajumobi an Architect lives in Lagos
