Philip Olabode Aivoji: Change maker or pacemaker for Lagos PDP

The Lagos State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has always reeled under the hegemonic control of the progressive lineage of Alliance of Democracy from 1999 till date.

Aivoji

All those who tried to upturn the winning magic of ‘the progressives’ from other platforms, especially the PDP, left with great tales about the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s political strategy and schemes.

Inspite of the continued failure to clinch Lagos State, PDP has never hidden its frustration and desire to bring variety to the governance of the Centre of Excellence. PDP stalwarts have continued the search for a proactive leadership that can rescue power from the clutches of one party tendencies.

As it is, PDP seems to have found that only with a well-organised party structure and trusted leadership birthed from a legitimate and inclusive democratic process could it make a competitive bid. Those who share this line of thought also claim that the party’s leader in a state like Lagos must also be well-respected, experienced and blessed with immense professional antecedents.

It was against that background that the recent effort to elect Lagos State PDP chairman brought about much enthusiasm, zeal and determination among the contenders, especially given that 2023 general elections are in the horizon.

Above all, members saw the need to build a formidable base for a good fight in the coming showdown. With that collective resolve, therefore, it was not surprising that the contest turned out as a keen contest among eminently qualified contenders.

Who The Cap Fits
AFTER the stiff contest, it was obvious that PDP faithful in Lagos had their eyes trained on a candidate that could square up to the task ahead, especially one that could rebuild the missing passion, confidence and cohesion.

The spontaneous expression of joy, when a former Lagos State Commissioner for Commerce, Philip Olabode Aivoji, was announced as the winner came as a testimony of collective wish for a change for the better.

Lagos PDP won because the members rose to the occasion by showing determination to rally around a consensus builder that would chart the path for a new direction and coble the party structure effectively. Aivoji’s victory could not be said to have come easy, but it merely signposts among other factors, the reward for years of principled and consistent political engineering and ideological re-evaluation.

The fact that only 23 votes separated the winner from his closest rival, showed how keen the contest was. Aivoji polled 839 to push Amos Fawole to the second position during the state congress held last Sunday in Lagos.

Chairman of the PDP Congress Committee, who is also the Bayelsa State governor, Senator Douye Diri, who released the result of the ballot, had stated: “In the chairmanship contest, we had six candidates. As chairman of this committee, I hereby declare Aivoji Philip Olabode as the chairman-elect of the Lagos State chapter of PDP.”

The governor disclosed the vote tally of other contenders as follows: King Okuneye (56); Niyi Adams (29); while Adetokunbo Pearse and Abiodun Adebiyi did not return any vote.

In his acceptance speech, Aivoji said he considered the verdict as a call to service and a privilege even as he promised to work with PDP leaders to reposition the party in Lagos in order to win elections.

It should be noted that the state congress election followed the Lagos PDP’s failure to elect members of the State Working Committee (SWC) through a consensus arrangement. Some delegates had protested the consensus option to choose the chairman, insisting on exercising their right to vote.

There was a division among the party faithful with two different lists pointing at two contenders as preferred choices; while one list had Dr. Amos Fawole from Surulere Local Council as the preferred Chairman, another paraded Phillip Olabode Aivoji as the choice aspirant.

Although Dr. Fawole’s group was confident of sweeping through the process, based on his earlier adoption as the consensus candidate at a meeting presided over by the only PDP state governor in Southwest, Engineer Seyi Makinde, where the 39 offices were shared among all tendencies.

At the instance of delegates, who insisted that contestants must test their popularity at the ballot, the Diri Committee was left with no option but to allow the people the expression of their democratic will.

With a total of 1,786 delegates accredited to elect the party’s chairman at the congress, the event almost became rowdy as supporters of Fawole rejected the number of votes cast for Aivoji.

The protesters alleged that three of the chairmanship aspirants share Philip as their first name with Aivoji and thereby implied that the votes of others were counted in favour of Aivoji.

But in a bid to guarantee transparency and fairness, Governor Diri ordered a recount of the ballot and at the end of the day; Aivoji’s victory was reconfirmed.
 
Aivoji is not in any way a political greenhorn considering his decades of progressive participation in the political and public space; especially flaunting a rich history that predates the current dispensation. He was, between 1989 and 1993, a state delegate under the Social Democratic Party, SDP, under which the late Chief Moshood Abiola later had to contest in the annulled 1993 presidential election adjudged to be Nigeria’s best in its democratic journey; within that same time, the newly elected chairman of the PDP was also the Organising Secretary of the Professor Femi Agbalajobi’s Campaign Organisation.

From 1996 through 1997, he was the Executive Chairman of Badagry Local Council and was later to be appointed as Lagos State Commissioner for Youth, Sports and Culture, before being moved to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, where he served between 1998 and 1999.

At the return of democracy, the new Lagos PDP Chairman was the party’s State Planning and Strategy Committee of a campaign organisation for the leading governorship aspirant in the state, the late Engr. Funso Williams; was within the same period, a member of the PDP State Executive Committee.

Aivoji, as a loyal and strong supporter of the late Funsho Williams, was again a member of the State Planning and Strategy Committee for the late politician in 2005 from where he served for two years before taking more active party assignment in 2011 as the Lagos State Field Officer of President Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation.

After the victory of the former President, Aivoji, concurrently served as SURE-P Coordinator for Lagos West Senatorial District and was a member, of Governing Council of the prestigious Yaba College of Science and Technology as well as a Director with Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), between 2014 and 2015.

Now that a new opportunity to serve has beckoned, it would be seen how the new PDP chairman would bring his wealth of experience to bear on the uphill task of giving PDP its first victory in the Lagos State governorship poll.