By Ibrahim A. Jagaba
Barely seven days from today, Nigerians will go to the polls to elect a new president and over four hundred members of the national assembly; in the same vein, March 11th 2023, is the official date for the governorship and state houses of assemblies elections, thus, the situation undoubtedly calls for increased commitment and sacrifice by all responsible citizens of the country towards a peaceful, fair and credible polls.
The above position in the words of the commander, Rapid Response Squad (RRS ), Lagos, CSP Saheed Olayinka Egbeyemi, who is a leading member of a frontline non governmental body, the Agege Molebi United Forum, informed the decision to hold what they christened, “Walk Against Electoral Violence”, to reawaken the spirit of peace across the land as we inch closer to the D-Days, he has said.
Agege Molebi United Forum as an NGO was born to among other things render support and contribute all that is lawfully good for the growth and development of humanity, especially in our dear community, Agege and Lagos state at large; one of such many missions is to invest in measures capable of reinforcing and sustaining peace, security and greater communo-societal good, which is what today’s exercise, “Walk Against Electoral Violence”, represents for the Forum.
Today we are about peaceful general elections; a fortnight ago, we were in twelve elementary schools across Agege and environ, where we gave out scholarships, provided a number of pupils with new school uniforms, sandals and distributed over twelve thousand writing materials made up of exercise books and biros to subsidize parental educational costs and lend our modest support to the child’s education right act.
One of the schools, African primary school, Oniwaya, which incidentally was the RRS commander’s past elementary school, benefitted from a 10.5kva Firman brand generating set donated by the forum.
The forum as monitored today, have traversed about ten different Agege communities after takeoff from pen cinema under bridge and termination at market street of Gbogunleri area, with the clear message of peace all the way as variously inscripted on the many placards and banners hoisted by many proud members of the group.
The exercise as carried out today by the Agege Molebi United Forum, is most necessary at this time and I want to call on other similar vanguards to come together in similar fashion to promote and ensure our elections are peace models; this was the contribution of one other prominent member of the forum, the Sarki overall of Alimosho, HRH Alhaji Ahmed Haruna Kuraja, who was part of the procession.
