My Fellow Ajeromi Ifelodun People,
Permit me to start by congratulating us and other Nigerians both home and abroad as we celebrate our 63rd Independence Day anniversary as a nation. Of course this has not come easy for us, for as we always sing it in our national anthem, “the Labour of our heroes past..shall never be in vain”, a phrase which clearly indicates that some individuals (heroes) laboured to give us the Nigeria we have today.
It leaves us with one rhetorical question,”has the Labour of our heroes past been in vain or not?” The answer is clearly written in your mind. However, judging by the present socio-economic situation of the country, is this where our founding fathers would have expected us to be at this time?
Personally I believe that they would have hoped for a better Nigeria than what we have today.
Truth be told, there is no sector of our economy that is doing well presently. The only sector that is seemingly doing well is the “Japa sector”. We are gradually and inadvertently exporting our skills and expertise (Human Resources) to foreign lands while we allow our country to decay in lack where there is surplus. This japa syndrome has left many of our youths dead and dry in the desert, while many have drowned in the Mediterranian Sea and many others wallowing in prisons all over the world.
Every four years we spend billions of naira to conduct elections which are not only marred with corruption and violence but also devoid of any atom of credibility leaving us with another important question, is the National Electoral Commission really Independent?
Notwithstanding my dear people of Ajeromi Ifelodun federal constituency, we must not give up on our God given gift of survival, we must ensure that we continue to fight against this darkness until light is won. We must continue to protect our democracy and also demand that the dividends of democracy be felt by all and sundry. This we must demand from those who are occupying elective offices whose major task is to represent the interest of their constituents. They must be made to be accountable to us the people for every single day they have occupied the position. We cannot continue to watch sheepishly as our collective patrimony is shared amongst a little few. We must keep hope alive.
My dear Ajeromi Ifelodun family, let me also use this medium to thank you all for the massive turnout and vote accrued to us in this last general elections. We had less than two weeks to campaign before the elections yet we could pull a massive number. May God bless you all for me. I want to reiterate that I am not giving up on our mission to make Ajeromi Ifelodun Federal Constituency a better place for all and at the right time I will call on your support once again and be rest assured that our next outing will be a success.
In the meantime, I will continue to support our people in the best possible way as I have always done and hope to do more through my NGO the Legit Foundation. As we celebrate our country’s 63rd independence anniversary, my wish is for every Nigerian to be self sufficient and able to contribute to the overall development and growth of our nation.
Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
Long live Lagos State!!
Long live Ajeromi Ifelodun Federal Constituency!!!
Thank you and God bless you!
—
Hon. Francis Barthlomew Chima
aka OmoBarca – OBA 001
Ajeromi Ifelodun LGA
Lagos State.
