What could be more painful than to see in your old age, your family legacy grabbed from you and being used as an electoral asset in your very eyes.
This is the pain of the great accountant, Mr. JK Randle whose family land was forcefully taken from them by the Ambode government and started a project now completed by Governor Sanwo-Olu.
Today every contestant for the Lagos seat is using that project as major evidence for prequalification to the Lagos seat. Even the Labour Party candidate has put it in his CV that he was the architect on the project even as Sanwo-Olu is also using the project as his administrations’ contribution to history and the arts.
In all of these, nobody is talking to JK Randle. They have just left him to be wearing his double-breasted suit and be sipping tea like the gentleman that he is with no compensation, talkless of recognition.
I hear his family owned the land. His family was and still is a distinguished family. His great grandfather led the first Olympic team of Nigeria to the Olympics in the 1930s. He was a doctor and very keen sportsman. The land was ceded to him to build a swimming pool to teach Lagosians especially the ones who needed to cross the Marina from the islands surrounding the Takwa Bay to come and trade in Isale Eko. They lost their lives as a result of the squalls on the Lagoon.
The good doctor lived by the present First Bank Head Office. So, the dead bodies used to float to his doorstep and he felt he had to do something about it. So, he approached the colonial government for the land beside the present Muson Centre and the new project where he built a swimming pool for the purpose.
Today, the Lagos State Government has taken it from him forcefully. Ignored the elder statesman and have gone ahead to build what I don’t know on the parcel of land and be using it as a campaign asset.
Chief Randle, sits in his old age in sadness, almost helpless and not knowing what to do. Each morning, he will be sending me articles he had written to fight the matter knowing fully well that nothing will be done to redress the situation.
I really pity Chief Randle. This is really a sad episode and very, very sad. Kai!
