Group Backs Soyinka’s Appointment As Co-chairman

A group operating under the platform of Coalition of Ibile Professionals on Tuesday said they are backing the choice of Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka as co-chair of the Lagos at 50 Celebration committee.

The group in a statement issued by its general secretary, Alhaji Wasiu Hassan, said members of Eko Foundation who were critical of the move were seeking cheap publicity and attention for relevance.

Hassan stated that Lagos State is made up of five divisions namely Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu, Lagos Island and Epe, adding that all the divisions are relevant for the progress of the state.

He picked holes in the insinuation that indigenes had been marginalized because some Eko Foundation members, who are exclusively from the Lagos Island division lost out in the search for appointment.

According to him, the Lagos Island division enjoyed the seat of power in Lagos for the last eight years as against other divisions.

He added that the coalition will resist any campaign of calumny against Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, who he said has been successfully balancing the state affairs and appointments to ”the excitement of all divisions of the state.”

Hassan vowed that members of the coalition will not fold their arms and allow the so-called indigenes with foreign names to usurp stable and peaceful co-existence in the state.

”How else can one describe the President of Eko Foundation, Professor Oluwole Smith, who failed to qualify on the short list for Lagos State University (LASU) Vice Chancellorship in the last selection process or is it Mrs. Teju Philips or Mr. Lawal Pedro who have non-indigene antecedents, and cannot therefore claim to be saintly?”