Festac residents decry poor performance of their representatives

Residents of Festac Town have decried the poor performance of some of their representatives in the various tiers of government since 1999. They also particularly regretted not recalling their representative in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mrs Risikat Adegeye, who has represented them since 2007.
President of Festac Town Residents Association, Mr Jola Ogunlusi, told our correspondent in Lagos that these representatives had failed them.

He said, “Our expectation from them is that they will get into the assembly, raise issues of problems of the estate in the house and bring the attention of the governor to our problems. Alas! No evidence of their ever remembering that they come from these constituencies.”

Ogunlusi who spoke to our correspondent at a political forum at Amuwo Odofin, Lagos, said such attitude would not be tolerated in 2011 as members of the community would not vote for bench warmers or people, whom, he said, would not even visit their constituencies to know their problems.

He also lamented that the community was not well represented at the federal level, saying their representative in the Senate for nearly four years, Solomon Ganiyu, had not even visited the area since he was elected in 2007.

He added, “They never report back to us and many people in Festac Town do not know them.”

He, nonetheless, commended a member of the House of Representatives, Ganiu Olukolu, saying he has moved two bills in the house that affected the estate.

One of such bills, he said, had led to the beginning of the National Independent Power Project in the estate.

Ogunlusi who put the population of the community at 1.5 million, said 2011 was a time that these poor leaders would render account to the people.

He said, “We have to take our future in our hands. If we keep silent, those ruling us would take us for fools and would do nothing for Festac Town.”

At the local government level, he said the current Chairman of Amuwo Adofin Local Government Area (under which Festac Town belongs), Mr Ayodele Adewale, is gradually meeting the expectations of the residents.

Also, the Vice-Chairman of Committee one of FTRA, Dr. Alex Edoh said the residents would not accept the imposition of candidates in 2011 and that votes would be cast for candidates based on their antecedents.

He said, “We would attack you by not giving you our votes. Some of our representatives are like salt that have lost their taste and need to be cast away,”

Efforts to get either Adegeye or Solomon to comment did not yield any positive result. Both did not reply to text messages sent to them on Thursday.