Top Nollywood actress and filmmaker Funke Akindele, aka Jenifa, has announced that she will be running as a deputy governorship candidate in Lagos on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The announcement means that Ms Akindele will be PDP governorship candidate Olajide ‘‘Jandor’ Adediran‘s running in the 2023 gubernatorial election in Lagos. 

Ms Akindele, while addressing her followers via a video posted on her Instagram, explained the reason for accepting Mr Adediran’s request to be his running mate.

“I am a Lagosian born out of Ikorodu. When the Lagos PDP gubernatorial candidate Dr Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran ‘Jandor’, asked me to be his running mate as deputy governor in next year’s gubernatorial election, I saw it as an opportunity to help liberate and improve the welfare of our people, particularly the deprived youths, women and the girl-child,” said the actress.

She, however, admitted that her venture into politics would affect her career as an actress and a filmmaker.

“I am not unaware of the cost of this assignment on my vibrant career, which I must now necessarily put on hold,” she stressed. “It is a huge personal sacrifice. My resolve is that no sacrifice is too much for the actualization of the urgent mission to rescue our people and our dear state…It is a call that I take with reverence and utmost sense of responsibility.”