By Olufemi Oni, Ilorin
Kwara South senatorial candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Prof. Wale Sulaiman, has urged indigenes of the senatorial district based in Lagos to leverage the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) to travel to their hometowns and vote in the forthcoming elections.
Prof Sulaiman, who spoke in Lagos at an interactive session with representatives of over 25 Kwara South community Associations and the seven Local Government Areas Associations based in the Southwest, opined that the Electoral Act, especially with the introduction of BVAS, has given real power to the electorate to decide who their representatives would be, stressing that votes would count this time around.
He said: “The Electoral Act has strengthened democracy by giving the power to decide who represents them to the voters.
“I plead with you to support us in building the Kwara South of our dreams by traveling home to vote and influencing others at home to vote all SDP candidates in the forthcoming elections.”
Prof. Sulaiman noted that “past representatives of Kwara South had not demonstrated the political will that promotes the interests of the people”, adding that “the people who were expected to secure democracy dividends for the people of Kwara South had been mere stooges of godfathers. For more than 23 years in the nation’s democracy, the people of Kwara South had elected representatives who obeyed the whims and caprices of their godfathers rather than being the voice of the people. We are tired of that manner of representation.”
The National Chairman of SDP, Shehu Gabam, represented by a national executive member of the Party, Tunde Babalola, who said: “Kwara South district has more population than others, urged them to seize the opportunity to elect Prof. Sulaiman whose vision is to entrench developmental politics.
A chieftain of the Party, Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo, said: “The SDP collaborated with the APC to form the ‘Otooge’ movement to enhance good governance, but we pulled out because they were not fulfilling the promises we made to people”, urging Kwarans in Lagos and other communities in the Southwest to come home and vote for quality candidates of the SDP.
The event was attended by all the Party’s candidates in Kwara State.