Some 18 days to next month’s general elections billed for 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 triangular. 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.