A group, Badagry Justice Forum, has advised residents of the coastal town to shun politics of stomach infrastructure and vote for the development of the town in the coming general elections.
Mr Lanre Ajayi, the Coordinator of the group, gave the advice in an interview with newsmen on Tuesday in Badagry.
According to him, the residents have strived to make Badagry great politically, socially and economically over the years, but “efforts of our heroes past and present have not taken us to the Badagry of our dream.”
“We cannot shy away from the fact that the Badagry Local Government, as it is today, is one of the most backward local government areas in Lagos State.
“We all know that we are not where we are supposed to be in every ramification in our dear Lagos State.
“One of the factors hindering our development individually and collectively is our approach to politics.
“Our first mistake politically is our quest for the politics of the belly.
“In every political dispensation, while people contribute financial resources for their political parties and candidates, ours is to rush to the contributed resources by others in order to have our own share,” he said.
Ajayi said that politics, all over the world, could never be devoid of money and those who contributed the resources to gain the power automatically become the major beneficiaries.
“We can never reap where we did not sow. This is a sad episode in our political history, but we could collectively do something about this.
“We are stakeholders in Badagry project and with a refocusing from the politics of the belly to an objective contribution to the success of our party and candidates, Badagry will surely be better for it,” he said.
Ajayi said that Badagry residents had consistently elected wrong people into offices and this had indirectly affected Badagry.
He, however, said that what was important now was to concentrate on the current and the future individually and collectively as “Badagrians”.