Having served as a board member, assembly member, commissioner and deputy governor in Lagos State. It is open knowledge that what Adejoke Orelope Adefulire holds to heart as her greatest political failing, was her inability to go to the Nigerian Senate to represent Lagos West senatorial district.
Six years six months down the line she begrudges the national leader of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his spouse Senator Remi Tinubu, the immediate past Governor of the State of Osun and now minister of interior Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola and a host of other politicians in Alimosho federal constituency, as the brains behind her failed quest to be at the red chamber.
As the sole beneficiary of her late father’s (Alhaji Kareem Laka aka Orelope an Ibadan indigene) political labour, being the only school certificate attemptee among her numerous siblings, the hair-dresser turned politician bitterly holds to heart her inability to become the Leader of Lagos west political stock.
The fact that Olamilekan Adeola Solomon aka Yayi was preferred to her was considered by her as blight in her political trajectory, her compensatory appointment as the senior special assistant to the President on sustainable development goals has not erased this pain and what she regarded as a political loss.
In her quest to get back at real and perceived political enemies, Adejoke Orelope Adefulire has continued to be the rallying point for disgruntled and dissatisfied political elements in Alimosho federal constituency. She broke away from the party structure, was coopted, and therefrom became the major purse of the factional Alimosho Veteran group. One of the main reasons was because her pet aide and boy toy Hon Akin Johnson lost the Alimosho council primaries to Hon Jelili Sulaimon in 2016. She had considered Alimosho LGA as her personal political enclave; this was a rude awakening as all her prior personal appointments came to her on a platter of gold, without her having to labour for any ticket or appointment.
She joined forces with the Fuad Oki led anti-Tinubu conspiracy in 2015 to 2020 political time belt, her vicious anti-party moves saw her sponsoring her associates Hon Akin Idowu Bashiru and Hon Omotunde Olowoopejo Sanuth to contest the Alimosho State Constituency 01 and 02 in Accord Party respectively.
Coming out of the 2019 general elections empty-handed, she and the Veterans joined forces with Alimosho Liberationists, who fell out with Alimosho Mainstream. The alliance coopted Rt Hon Mudashiru Idowu Obasa the Lagos State Speaker, into their conspiracy to take over Alimosho federal constituency, Obasa in this process reconciled her with Tinubu.
Leveraging on this reconciliation and Tinubu’s famed magnanimity, Adejoke Orelope Adefulire reinvigorated and re-energized her quest to take over political structure and political power in Alimosho federal constituency. In blatant disregard, to the political structure, her late father and other eminent personalities laid down and established in the constituency.
The window of the immediate past local council election was an attempt to crown herself as Alimosho apex leader. She positioned her associates as aspirants in the six councils and in the 36 wards in the constituency, these individuals lost in the primaries; their loss was no surprise to those knowledgeable about Alimosho politics.
Adejoke Orelope Adefulire is an entitled absentee politician at the grassroots, supervising a collection of inordinately entitled loud social media politicians, who ironically had served in various public offices positions in the constituency, but who are not ready to yield space for others.
What she and her followers could not get at the primaries, she tried to get by lying to Tinubu that primaries did not hold in Alimosho, this was debunked by Hon Wale Edun, the chair of Lagos APC Local Council Primary Organizing Committee, who stated that one of the local government in Lagos State, where primaries did hold was Alimosho federal constituency, he backed up his position with his field officers, INEC and police reports.
The Governor’s Advisory Council (GAC), having come into the reality of her political weightlessness, but in the spirit of give and take, at the end of all negotiations and broad appeal for oneness and unity gave three vice chairmanship and 10 councillor slots to her factions (Veterans & Liberationists) in Alimosho constituency, these she initially appropriated for her inner caucus, the leads of both the Veterans and the Liberationists had to square up to her, to press some of these slots away from her.
The window of the recently organized ward, local government area and state party congresses by the APC National Caretaker and Convention Planning Committee, is the current platform Adejoke Orelope Adefulire and associates are desperately trying to use in taking over the constituency. Alimosho has eleven constitutionally recognized wards, her divide refused to present their candidates at the congress venues for elections, they went to town with the provocative summation that they have the directive of Tinubu to the immediate past state party chairman Alhaji Tunde Balogun and Governor Babajide Olushola Sanwo-Olu to give them 75 percent of the party officer positions by fiat. According to them, these congresses are mere plastic exercises they will get their slots by fiat.
The Alimosho federal constituency APC mainstream leads and members have serially extended a hand of fellowship to Adejoke Orelope Adefulire, which she rebuffed at each turn, all because of her failed senatorial quest. Serial interventions by religious and traditional rulers in the constituency did cut with her, she was advised to take a cue from past and present deputy governors in the state who have continued to be stabilizing factors in their respective constituencies, not leading serial vicious usurping attempts, that fails at each end anyways, she once cut the phone on one of the Awori Obas in Alimosho, who retorted that “Well an Ibadan blood will act true to type”. She was asked that what is the lot of her father’s contemporaries in Alimosho politics today, the likes of Baba Elediye, Baba Ogbomosho and Baba Abati to mention a few all of blessed memory, what has their children gained from their labours, she, having being the sole beneficiary has not only abandoned her political siblings but has continued to foment trouble in the bid to gain leadership. If other scions of Alimosho politics founding fathers are behaving as she is doing, there will be a breach of public peace in the constituency.
She chickened out of her latest gambit, the attempt to hoodwink members of the constituency, that she is now the new apex leader, by detailing her associates to call a constituency meeting on Friday, November 26, 2021, as the new constituency “Apex Leader”, and as a precursor to her renewed bid for the Senate among others.
Alimosho political watchers have come to terms, with the fact that Adejoke Orelope Adefulire who as the SDG office boss, failed to empower party members broadly, none of the SDG contract projects is awarded to any professional in Alimosho APC family, no consultancy came to anyone, not even supplies, but she has continued to wet the beaks of her pets, boy toys, hangers-on and family members, in her quest to take over Alimosho federal constituency.
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https://any.peopleandpowermag.com/unveiled-alimosho-politics-of-entitlement-hon-adejoke-orelope-adefulires-role/
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