The chairman of the Labour Party (LP) in Lagos state, Pastor Dayo Ekong, has taken her predecessor, Kayode Salako to the cleaners over claims that the party would have set Lagos back by the years if its candidate in the Lagos governorship election had won.
Salako, who claimed he handed the party ticket to Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour “free of charge,” accused the guber candidate of disregarding those he described as elders of the party, just as the governorship hopeful also pushed him (Salako) aside.
Speaking on Arise News TV on Sunday, Ekong lambasted Salako, saying the former chairman represents the old system of politics in Nigeria. She said Salako was actually a mole planted within the Labour Party for a hatchet job and he left immediately after he completed his assignment for his paymasters.
She said: “It’s sad that somebody like Salako, who was a chairman in the labour party, could talk about his party’s gubernatorial candidates this way. The truth of the matter is that Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour represents what the Labour Party ideology is all about. Salako to me, represents the old system, the old ways of APC PDP. And there is no doubt that with the values of the Labour Party, he does not represent what the Labour Party stands for.
“…What Salako is saying now is that he’s not compatible with the values of the Labour Party in the sense that he wants to be a lord like its done in the APC and the PDP. He wants to wake up and see Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour call him in the morning to say, Godfather, here I come. That is not what Labour Party represents. We’ve moved past that.
“We in the Labour Party, are about bringing about a new Nigeria, where everyone that has the credibility and the capacity can come out and say I’m contesting to bring about a new Nigeria because there’s no doubt about it, that Nigeria needs a new leadership, a leadership, that is for the people, a leadership that will put the people first. And that is what the Labour Party represents and not all these stories about ego and so on” she told Arise News TV
The Labour Party chairman added that Salako who was a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for many years, only joined the Labour Party as a mole to destabilise the party.
“Salako had a mission. And he knows what he came into the Labour Party to do. Let me quote him verbatim from the interview he granted the Punch newspaper when he was asked why he and his wife are supporting different political parties.
“He said and I quote him: “I left APC because of the many years I have been there… I didn’t gain anything as a member.”
“So it’s not about service, it’s about what he can get. He went on to say: “As a member of the party. I was only working and it seems as if they didn’t see me. I felt if I went to another party and proved what I could do in terms of capability to run things perhaps APC will see me” End of quote.
“So the Labour Party does not represent this. It’s not about what we want to gain, but what we want to offer to Nigerians,” She explained.
Kayode Salako who contested for the House of Representative seat under the platform of the Labour Party in the just concluded election, resigned his position as party chairman in January to contest the seat.
