With less than 24 hours to the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election in Lagos State to choose candidate for the 2019 gubernatorial election, the incumbent Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, has vowed not to step down from the guber race.
At a meeting of leaders of the APC, at the Bourdillon, Ikoyi home of the party’s National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the governor was reportedly said to have listed his achievements to convince the party leaders on why he should be given the party’s ticket, but his plea fell on deaf ears.
“Ambode was told in plain terms that the party will not support his second term ambition and as such should step down for the candidate the party members are clamouring for. But throughout the whole discussion and till the meeting ended, the governor stood his ground, explaining why he must run and that he will run if APC desires to win the state.
“He was busy speaking grammar when no single member at the meeting supported him. We wish him luck”, a source said.
The meeting however ended with a directive to the State Working Committee of the party to address a press conference today, Saturday at the party’s secretariat on Acme road, Ikeja where the preferred governorship candidate Jide Sanwo-Olu and his running mate, Femi Hamzat will be officially presented to party members to vote for at the governorship primaries scheduled for tomorrow, Sunday.
A source close to the governor however said that, “Tinubu and his men are jokers, if they fail to present Ambode for second term, they will lose Lagos like they lost Osun, forget the eventual manipulation of the final result.”
“Ambode is the party’s poster boy, and that’s why President Buhari asked the SGF, Boss Mustapha to wade into the Lagos ticket issue but if they ignore even the president’s intervention, they will be doomed like Osun. Nigerians will see that Tinubu is overrated as has shown in Osun. You can see that the president had to send Fayemi, Oshiomhole and others to step into the Osun election, the presidential emissaries didn’t go to meet Tinubu and Aregbesola who were in Osogbo before they went straight to meet Omisore in Ile-Ife, that shows how less they regard him”, the source added.
