February 14 and 28, the controversies surrounding the
pasting of campaign posters and materials by the two major
political parties in Lagos State, the All Progressives
Progress, APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,
continues unabated, given dramatic twists it has assumed.
Since November 9, 2014, when the Lagos State Signage
Advertisement Agency, LASAA, revealed its determination to
checkmate indiscriminate use of campaign posters and
banners along major roads in the state, it has indeed been
no love lost between members and supporters of the ruling
APC and the major opposition PDP.
According to the Lagos State Signage and Advertisement
Law (2006), it is an offence to paste posters on walls
except in mapped-out zones.
Unauthorised places
Managing Director of LASAA, Mr. George Noah, who
expressed worry on the indiscriminate pasting of campaign
materials in the state, stated that the agency was set to
hold a meeting with political parties to spell out modalities
guiding the use of campaign posters and banners with
proper consideration for the environment under enabling
laws.
Noah said: “We wish to restate our commitment to our
earlier directive that posters will not be allowed within
unauthorised places like high streets, highways, major
roads, loops, bridges, pillars and triangulars. Posters are
only allowed in designated zones such as walls of public
schools, public hospitals and stadia.”
However, build-up to the polls, LASAA’s directive seem to
have fallen on deaf ears, as all the political parties fielding
candidates for the presidential, national assembly,
governorship and the Lagos State House of Assembly race
have their posters and banners indiscriminately dotting the
unauthorised places across the state.
Vanguard gathered that posters now dot the Ojuelegba
bridge, Third Mainland bridge, Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way
bridge, Iyana-Ipaja bridge; Barracks bridge, LASU bridge,
Trade Fair bridge, all along the Lagos-Badagry expressway,
Oshodi-Apapa expressway; Oworoshoki road among
others.
Lagos CP’s warning: Pissed by this development, LASAA’s
intervention to clear the unauthorised places of the mess of
campaign materials, got a major setback, on January 5,
2015, following the warning issued by the Lagos State
Police Command that the agency should forthwith stop the
removal and destruction of campaign posters of political
aspirants.
Briefing journalists in his Ikeja office on the preparedness of
the police for the forthcoming elections, the state
Commissioner of Police, Kayode Aderanti disclosed that the
need for the Lagos State agency to thread with caution
became necessary, as his office had recently been
inundated with series of complaints from political aspirants
of other political parties alleging mass pulling down of their
posters and billboards by officials of LASAA.
Citing Section 100 (2) of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended,
Aderanti stated that LASAA as a state apparatus must
desist from any act that will call to question its purpose
against any political party, warning that “if it fails to desist
from the illegal act, the Command would invoke the full
wrath of the law before, during or after the elections on any
individual or agency of government that conducts himself or
itself in any way that is inimical to peaceful campaigns and
elections.”
Lagos challenges TAN: Despite the CP’s warning, in what
seems like a first salvo, the Lagos State Government on
January 23, was said to have directed the campaign group
of President Goodluck Jonathan under the umbrella of
Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, TAN, to remove all
campaign posters and materials of the President, illegally
placed on street lights poles in the state.
The LASAA boss, who issued this directive, warned that if
the order was not acted upon, its enforcement team would
remove the offending posters.
According to Noah, the usurpation of the poles for the PDP
campaign threatens a N50 billion outdoor advertising
industry in the state and has already made two outdoor
agencies, Touch Point Limited and Clearedge Limited lose
contracts worth N350 million.
He stated that the contracts had been terminated as a result
of the parallel and illegal deployment of Jonathan’s
campaign materials on poles paid for by two advertisers-
Chinese Telecoms firm, Huawei and Globacom.
FG retaliates: Meanwhile, in a tit-for-tat, the Federal
Government, on January 23, was said to have terminated
existing approvals for outdoor sites previously given to
outdoor practitioners in Lagos State.
Outdoor adverts
The termination order affects outdoor adverts locations on
Federal roads/setbacks.
The cancellation was said to have come on the heels of the
threats by LASAA, to remove PDP and President Goodluck
Jonathan adverts placed on street poles, which have been
paid for by some companies.
It was gathered that the decision to revoke the sites
approvals came in a letter written by the Federal Ministry of
Works to the President of the Outdoor Advertising
Association of Nigeria, OAAN.
At the time of filing this report, it was said that OAAN, the
association representing outdoor agencies in Nigeria has
called for an emergency meeting of its executive members
on Monday to deliberate on this latest development.
OAAN is expected to discuss among other issues the N350
million loss suffered by some of its members as a result of
the illegal deployment of PDP adverts on street lamp poles
previously paid for by Globacom and Huawei, the Chinese
telecommunications company.
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