Tinubu: Since you ‘want freedom, learn tailoring’; Agbaje: ‘Pharaoh, let our people go’!

The Lagos State governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Jimi Agbaje, has responded to national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Bola Tinubu, who mocked him for his ‘freedom’ campaign slogan.

Tinubu had, while addressing members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Monday, said, “Those who said they want freedom should go and learn tailoring and vulcanising and we will do freedom for them later.”

Reacting in a statement on Tuesday, Agbaje likened Tinubu to the biblical Pharaoh of Egypt who refused to allow the enslaved children of Israel leave.

“Pharaoh, you must let our people go!” Agbaje said.

“Apparently, the APC leader has lost touch with reality,” Agbaje said in a press statement by his Director of Media and Publicity, Felix Oboagwina.

“Otherwise, he would know that, like the children of Israel, Lagosians are groaning under the taskmaster that Tinubu and his cronies have turned themselves into in this state that should rate as Nigeria’s foremost,” he added.

Recalling that the biblical Pharaoh finally freed the Israelites only after several plagues, Agbaje said Lagosians would be liberated after the people might have delivered an electoral disgrace to the APC in 2019.

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He also said that his campaign slogan mirrored the same spirit that moved Nelson Mandela to declare his long walk to freedom in an apartheid South Africa.

Agbaje said, “We identify with our vulcanisers, tailors and all craftsmen who have the joy of duly-earned freedom after their apprenticeship.

“But it is apparent that, unlike them, those who have gotten used to filthy lucre and the dividends of corruption cannot savour the joy that comes with the legitimate sweat and labour of hardworking artisans.”

He argued that Lagos State must be freed from the era of nepotism and corruption that has seen a private firm maintaining a stranglehold on the state’s funds, contrary to global best practices.

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