Society Gists

Against the groundswell of insinuations that the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, might have narrowed its choices for the Lagos governorship seat in the next elections to successful pharmacist, Jimi Agbaje and probably, the current Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, another governorship hopeful, Deji Doherty, may have punctured that permutation with his declaration of intent to govern the state.

This would be his second shot at the prime seat. He first contested in 2007 on the platform of the PDP but he lost at the primaries to Obanikoro who eventually lost the contest to the incumbent Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola.

According to Doherty, he decided not to contest in 2011 because, “Most of (Fashola’s) agenda were just similar to mine.  So, why trying to fix what has not been broken?  If you look at my responses since Fashola came in, it was a situation where you have a right man for the job but in a wrong party…And I believe (Fashola) is a man of integrity, a man who wants to do the job for the betterment of Lagos State but a man that had his hands tied for the past seven years.

It’s quite a pity, but definitely with a PDP-led government, with a government led by my humble self, we will definitely perform better and do a lot of things that Fashola hadn’t done.” Doherty, otherwise a successful businessman and owner of the popular events centre, Ten Degrees, Ikeja, says he is in this present contest to slug it out for the party’s ticket. More so, he says, “I am a grassroots person. I have shops in Ebute Ero, Oja Oba, Mushin, Daleko.

So, if you go to the market women, they know me and I know them.  So, at the end of the day, what do you want to tell me? I know what they need and also why I should give it to them because they built me. I believe by the special grace of God, we will get to the Promised Land.” Doherty’s posters are now visible in the metropolis and in soft-sell magazines, which is very well patronised by his neighbours in Ebute Ero, Oja Oba, Mushin, Daleko and other suburb