Prince Adewale Gomez, Adaba-1, the Senatorial Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for Lagos Central Senatorial District in Lagos state has come to be reckoned with as a Phenomenon in the political circle and the larger society for what he represents.
Prince Gomez ran the longest, most impactful and most resources consuming campaign ever in recent history of the party in the state, hence his popularity among party members and the general populace.
In spite of all his unparalleled, huge party and members oriented efforts and consequent massive support from party faithful, Prince Gomez, in order to avert needless crisis capable of dividing the party and in true loyalty to the party, let go of his long pursued Governorship ambition to vie for the Senatorial seat of Lagos Central and he was therefore crowned the Peace Purveyor and the Adaba (Dove) by the people.
The Adaba-1 having committed huge resources into his Governorship and later Senatorial Campaign waa denied the benefit of accessing the election fund for his Constituency as it was with other Senatorial Candidates in the state who were given the controls over such funds in their various constituency.
The Presidential Campaign Committee (PCC) in the state which included Prince Gomez in the signing and receiving of the fund suddenly turned round to release the election fund for Lagos Central to other members of the PCC from the zone who decamped to APC few days to the election and disappeared with the election fund in their custody - what a tragedy!
Where the leading members of the Presidential Campaign Committee (PCC) in the state in the likes of Engr. Atolagbe Animashaun from Eti-Osa was physically and aggressively challenging and condemning the Adaba as not deserving of an access to the election fund from the party and the presidential candidate;
The likes of Otunba Segun Adewale, Aeroland, grossly condemned the untowardly acts against Prince Adewale Gomez as very unfair. It was Aeroland who out of deep concern and compassion arranged a widow's mite for Adbaa to patch up with.
The phenomenon Adaba pulled himself together and went to work to arrest the very disastrous situation and still managed to emerge victorious at the polls. However, the ill-motivated party agents and supervisors could not do much to protect the victory of Adaba, hence the after-election manipulations by the ruling APC in the state.
Despite, the shenanigans of the APC, the Adaba team of Researchers and Statisticians were able to dig up loads of evidences to retrieve the stolen mandate with backed up facts from the various legally secured Certified True Copies of Election Results, BIVAS Report among other documents.
An impostor from the party's Legal Department at the headquarters in Abuja thereafter showed up to claim that he was sent by the National Legal Adviser of the party to file petition on behalf of Adaba-1 and other cheated party Candidates in the state.
Barr. Adedamola, obtained by trick, huge sums of money from Prince Adewale Gomez and other party Candidates in the state to file Petitions and defend their cases, only ending up to sub-contract the cases to unknown legal practitioners who only operated on Adedamola's instructions and never that of the candidates.
He, Adedamola connived with his contracted legal practitioners to conspire with the ruling party in the state to sabotage all the good cases of PDP Candidates.
How else could one have placed the premature filing of a pre-hearing notice in the Lagos Central Senatorial petition? An intentional deed by Barr. Adedamola and which formed the basis upon which the tribunal and the appellate court capitalized to deny Prince Gomez a fair hearing. His case was never heard for one day not to talk of having the opportunity of presenting the damning facts already complied to knock out the APC candidate.
The Petitions filed by Barr. Adedamola was in all senses a yo-man's job for the ruling party and his candidate. It was fraught with so much errors and loopholes yet he charged and collected a huge amount of money for the 'dead on arrival' petition. Little wonder Barr. Ademola waa so much desperate to have the APC's candidates direct contact.
Prince Adewale Gomez must have lost his case at the Tribunals and the appeal at the Appellate Court to a raging war waged by the various principalities within the party - those that connived to deny him access to his constituency election fund, those that denied the party agents in the constituency access to the fund and decamped to APC with the funds few days to the election, the impostor of a legal representative and saboteur, Barr. Adedamola, from the party headquarters in Abuja;
But the Adaba-1 only lost the War but he gallantly won the Battle He broke the jinx of the ruling party in Lagos Central and obviously defeated their candidate in the badly rigged and manipulated election. The facts are there but Prince Gomez was denied all opportunities to present his evidences as he was completely shut out via a questionable dismissal of his petition. Whatever happened to the principle of fair hearing!
Irrespective of the shenanigans and conspiracy, Prince Adewale Gomez, Adaba-1, for so many reasons not far fetched remains a Phenomenon in Lagos state polity!
Long live the Adaba-1 of Lagos state!
And goodnight democracy!
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