PANDEMONIUM ERUPTS IN ALIMOSHO AS AREGBE ATTEMPTED RESURRECTION FROM COFFIN AMIDST APC SENSITISATION ON CVR

Story by Toyo C. Ngem

It was a sight of confusion, commotion and brigandage, which errupted spontaneously with a clash of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Africa Democratic Congress (ADC) at about noon of Saturday in Moshalashi area of Alimosho Local Government. Civics Weekly gathered that the pandemonium trailed the attempt of ant-Tinubu's "Coalition" camp to make inroads into Lagos State via the Local Government. The former two-term governor of Osun State and former Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, whose political milestone began from Alimosho is believed to be the visage of ADC in the Southwest geopolitical Zone of Nigeria.

Alimosho Local Government is politically described as "Tinubu Country", which symbolises it as the most convenient base of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's electoral stronghold in the State. With the about 1,400 polling units, the Federal Constituency is always the delight of any political group or individual that truly wish to make a significant landmark in Lagos politics. However, the man behind the making of Alimosho as Tinubu country was no other person than the Aregbe.

But given his current enmity status with President Tinubu since 2021 when his mock coffin was paraded and the mock incineration burial performed, it is thus literally satirical that his coming to Alimosho to launch his new political party was an attempt of a self-resurrection from the coffin. WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW Our correspondent gathered that the unfortunate incident could have been foreseen given the eyewitness accounts of the neighbourhood residents that the Police had deployed their personnel to parade the axis of the venue thoughtfully designated for an APC event. The strategically placed event banners revealed that the APC of Alimosho Federal Constituency would be holding a "Sensitisation programme on Continuous Voters Regustration Exercise". The Executive Chairman of Agbado/Okeodo Local Council Development Area, Hon Abiodun Ejigbadero (pix below), was covered by Civics Weekly while telling the people the importance of their voting power and why it was mandatory for them to go out and get their PVC.

The event had gone underway from the early morning of Saturday, September 6th, with many of the council chairmen and party bigwigs doing their things at the Kokumo Playing Ground in the Moshala area of Egbeda/Iyana-Ipaja corridor. Arrival of the APC State Vice Chairman, Lagos West, Chief Sunday B. Aboyade, was seen to have added glamour to the programme.

Our correspondent further gathered from the residents that the venue could as well have been the original place the ADC earlier designated for its Alimosho rally. "We have been hearing since three days ago that Aregbe is coming here today. So when we began to see the banners of APC, many of us even thought he has returned back to APC until this afternoon when the problem started", a source told this magazine.

It was learnt that the clash of venue may have informed the news that the ADC had secured an alternative venue at the Command area of Agbado/Okeodo, from where news broke out that open skirmishes had also disrupted their event. While it was not clear to this magazine what could have been the cause of the command's brouhaha, there could be no doubt that the spill over effect was the pandemonium at the Moshalashi.

An eyewitness account which gave a graphic image of how it all started at the Moshalashi Roundabout said many vehicles of private concerns innocently going their ways also "got damage" in the commotion while trying to navigate their way out of the confusion trailing a sudden attack of two coastal buses.

The source said: "Three of these coastal buses (see below) were coming from Ipaja side when they were caught in a light traffic here. All of a sudden, we discovered that they had been trapped under a mob attack whose claim was that the occupants were trying to run away after they had injured some people at the place they were coming from. How far that was true, this magazine could not ascertain it because some of the occupants on their escape from the scene denied anything of sort.

"One of the buses managed to escape unhurt while the windscreen and body of these two were badly damaged. I pitied an elderly man who hit his chest against the ground while running from the atrack".

Arrival of the State Commissioner of Police was to further douse tension. He personally supervised the evacuation of the damaged coastal buses to Area 'F'.