Jandor opens up ‘merger talks’ with Labour Party

The Peoples Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate in Lagos, Adediran Olajide Azeez aka Jandor, have dashed hopes of many Lagosians looking forward to a formidable alliance between PDP and Labour Party in the state ahead of the polls on Saturday.

Labour Party’s Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour had a few days ago confirmed alliance talks with the members of PDP in Lagos as part of efforts to unseat the APC-led administration in the state.

Jandor, who spoke on a Channels Television’s interview, Politics Today, on Monday night, however ruled out chances of alliance with the Labour Party ahead of the polls.

The entrepreneur argued that the candidacy of Rhodes-Vivour, who recently joined the Labour Party, is questionable, saying the latter still has a case pending in the Supreme Court.

Jandor insisted his party was prepared to go into the election without any snag, adding there was no need to sit on a keg of gunpowder.

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He said: “If it’s to be governor, I could have been governor where I was coming from, but I chose this route.

“When talks of an alliance began “flying around,” the PDP tabled the matter, even though we hadn’t sat together to discuss it.

“We came ourselves to look at the issue and say, ‘Within us, what do we want to do? Do we want to put an end to a dynasty that has held us by the jugular for over two decades? Where do we go from here?’

“We now discovered that the Labour Party candidate still has a case on his candidacy which is currently at the Supreme Court, we looked at it again that the Labour Party candidate also has an issue with Section 77 of the Electoral Act, which says if you’re leaving a particular party to another one, you must have been there, at least, for one month, that is, the party register would have been with INEC 30 days before that party primary.

“For us, we don’t have a problem, we would have said go on, let’s just take the APC government out. But knowing full well who we’re dealing with; we know the kind of character we’re dealing with, we know what can happen – there’s no point sitting on a keg of gunpowder.

“So, for us, we want an alliance; we don’t have any issue with it. But we must put our best foot forward. We must make sure that we go into this election without any snag whatsoever.”