Lagos landlords now refuse to accept Labour Party as tenants - Pat Utomi reveals

A chieftain and major supporter of the Labour Party, Professor Pat Utomi has disclosed how some landlords in Lagos refuse to accept his party as tenants to set up their offices across the state as the election draws near.

According to him, the landlords claim they are afraid that supporters of the All Progressives Congress will target their houses.

Speaking in an interview on the February general elections, Utomi said, “In Lagos State, you cannot put up a poster. If you want to rent a house, for Labour Party, the landlord will say he doesn’t want APC people to come and burn down his house. You put up posters, they are torn within minutes.

“What kind of democracy is this? This is fascism that we are introducing into Nigeria. And I anticipated it. I wrote about it in a book that came out a couple of years ago – Why Not? It was about citizenship, state capture, creeping fascism and the criminal hijack of politics in Nigeria.

“So, you get these kinds of conditions that obviously are all targeted at stifling democracy and then you get the actors conducting themselves in manners where you see an erosion of the legitimacy of the process.”

Prof Utomi was of the view that Peter Obi’s emergence has since brought about democratic interest across the country with many Nigerian youth showing interest towards the 2023 general election.

He added some political parties are preventing people from exercising their franchise at the polls.

Utomi stated that he is optimistic that the 2023 election will be a triumph for the people.

He said: “So, 2023 is about how the will of the people can triumph, how a country whose population has a median age of 18 can have a small group of people in their 70s and 80s, less than three per cent of the population, hold their knees on the neck of the people.”

BS