BY ROTIMI DUROJAIYE
It is about 17 months to the next general elections in Nigeria, and there are strong indications that the powers that be in Lagos State are scheming to ensure that the governor, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, does not make it as the All Progressives Congress candidate for the governorship poll.
The various interest groups are already plotting to see governor Sanwo-Olu’s back as plot to drop him from the race thickens.
They are in the process of narrowing the chances for Sanwo-Olu, as party stalwarts and top government officials are beginning to position themselves for the top slot in the state.
The gladiators
His deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, his Chief of Staff, Tayo Ayinde and Lagos East Senator, Tokunbo Abiru, are all said to have their eyes on the Lagos top job and will throw their hats into the ring.
Akinwunmi Ambode, the immediate past governor of the state is also speculated to be interested in the 2023 race.
Although his name has not feature prominently in the discourse on who becomes the next governor of Lagos State, Ambode may be the joker in the pack with an ace up his sleeves.
His foot soldiers are said to be making deft moves behind the scene, in preparation for the right time for their principal to make a grand entry.
During the last local government election on July 24, 2021, it became a rat race as Sanwo-Olu, Hamzat and Ayinde tried to outdo each other in the number of chairmen and councilors they will empower ahead of 2023.
Gbajabiamila was not also left out of the scheming.
After the initial efforts to talk the aspirants in Surulere, Itire/Ikate and Coker/Aguda to support his candidates using Tinubu’s name failed, it was reported that it became a free for all to such an extent that the primaries in Surulere became so bloody that two people allegedly lost their lives in the struggle.
Hamzat seemed to have the levers of power at his beck and call during the local government poll.
He was appointed to oversee the nomination and conduct of the election as everything revolved around him. He was able to fix some of his men and loyalists in Epe, Ikosi-Ejinrin and some other local governments across the state.
His blood brother, Usman Akanbi Hamzat, was elected chairman of his traditional local council of Ifako- Ijaiye where his late father, Oba Olatunji Hamzat held sway as the leader of the Justice Forum before he was installed as a traditional ruler in Ewekoro, Ogun State.
Hamzat is reported to have relocated to Epe, preparatory to the 2023 governorship election.
Ayinde also made attempt to install his loyalist in Onigbongbo LCDA but failed because of the power structure there.
Sanwo-Olu did not have a single councilor, let alone chairman to his credit and that has led to his deft political move recently.
This is beside other indignations the governor was alleged to have endured in order not to be distracted from his current mandate.
He is said to have complained bitterly to fellow governors in the APC that he’s been sidelined because of 2023.
Some of his strategists are reported to have advised him to take over the structure of the party at the state and that explained why he paid for all the wards executives during the just concluded congress.
The team that came to conduct the congress was picked at the highest level of the party to favour him. He has since intensified efforts to take over the state executives as a fallback position.
GAC wants Sanwo-Olu re-elected
However, most APC leaders, especially those in the Governor Advisory Council, want Sanwo-Olu to go for a second term. This is because Sanwo-Olu returned what Ambode took from them through the creation of Vision Scape to replace the Lagos Waste Management Authority, in sweeping of the streets in the state.
Sanwo-Olu restored the contract for the sweeping of streets through LAWMA to political leaders in the state. This is said to have endeared him to the leaders.
Tinubu’s influence
However, despite their support and their willingness for Sanwo-Olu to have a second term, they don’t want to come open now as they are watching the body language of their leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In the past, Tinubu used to seek the advice of the GAC concerning the choice of governorship candidate.
It is unclear if he will seek their opinion on Sanwo-Olu’s second term. If he consults them, Sanwo-Olu is as good as going for second term. It was learnt that it was their rejection of Ambode that led to his humiliation at the direct primary of the party where Sanwo-Olu defeated him in 2019.
Tinubu is also believed not to be leaving anything to chance and he is working out a plan for 2023.
According to impeccable sources, the plan is to groom Sanwo-Olu’s successor in the person of Abiru.
A banker by profession, Abiru was snatched from the world of finance and plunged into a “four-year tutelage in politics which a tenure at the Senate would afford him,” said a source.
By 2023, Tinubu’s strategy is that Abiru would be ready in both politics and finance to govern Lagos State.
Although he participated in government briefly in 2011 to 2013 when he served as Commissioner for Finance during the administration of Fashola, he soon went back to the banking world at First Bank where he rose to become an Executive Director before joining Polaris Bank as Managing Director until his resignation on August 24, 2020 to contest the senatorial election on the platform of the APC.
He replaced the late Senator Bayo Osinowo.
Lagos4Lagos factor
The Lagos4Lagos Group has also not given up. The Lead Visioner, Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, is lurking, waiting to unleash his mass movement of supporters across the state ahead of 2023.
The Lagos4Lagos Movement is a group within the APC.
Penultimate Saturday, the group held a parallel local government congress at different locations in the state.
The mainstream APC group, led by the state caretaker committee chairman, Tunde Balogun, also held its congress in designated areas as spelt out by the party’s Local Government Congress Committee.
Adediran alleged impunity, imposition and marginalisation in the party for his action.
In Agege LGA, the group held its congress separately from the designated venue of the mainstream party in the state.
At the congress, 27 LG executives and three national delegates equally emerged, with Babatunde Odikunrin as chairman, Ogunleye Babatunde as vice chairman and 25 other executives.
The names of the three national delegates elected by the group were Sunday Ajayi, Kayode Opeifa, and Afolabi Rasheed.
In Ifako/Ijaiye LGA, the Balogun faction, held its congress at Ifako-Ijaiye Annex office, popularly known as NRC building while the Lagos4Lagos Movement group camped at Ojokoro area of the council.
Each camp produced separate sets of 27 LG executives and three national delegates for the party in the council.
Badagry schemes to produce next governor
As the battle towards the governorship ticket rages, Adediran, and former Secretary to Lagos State Government, Adenrele Adeniran Ogunsanya, are rooting for the Badagry Division to produce the next governor of the state in 2023.
They are alleging that among the five administrative divisions of Lagos, Badagry is the most neglected and yet to produce governor of the state whether military or civilian.
Ikeja Division had produced Lateef Jakande.
Ikorodu Division had late Group Captain Gbolahan Mudashiru and Sir Michael Otedola as helmsmen of Lagos.
Lagos Division produced Tinubu, while Epe produced Ambode. Badagry Division is yet to occupy the topmost seat.
Making a case for Badagry, Adediran, and Ogunsanya spoke in February shortly after Adediran revalidated his membership of APC, in his constituency at Ilewe home town, Ward G under Ojo local government Lagos, he said Badagry had been neglected by successive governments in the state.
Adediran said if elected he would make Lagos work for Lagosians, lamenting that Badagry Division where he hails from is the only division in Lagos that has never produced a governor.
“Our roads are the worst in the entire Lagos. Look at Badagry express way, and you can’t even pass through it. This project is personal to us, the priorities are there looking at us in the face. In terms of infrastructural development, we are far behind. It appears like a deliberate act of those ruling us in Lagos to just impoverish us, to ensure that we are not among those that can be called part of Lagos like Victoria Island and Lekki. Governance is beyond that but we are coming to bring that promise of a better tomorrow.
“We have gone round, and if you look at the proximity of this Island to the mainland, I think with the state that is making a huge amount of money, it will not cost us anything to have bridges linking everywhere, not just a bridge for us, it is going to be a very iconic one. The moment you see it, you can tell that this is part of Lagos. But unfortunately, what we have had in the past two decades is nothing but total neglect of this part of Lagos,” he said.
Ogunsanya, who accompanied Adediran to the revalidation exercise, said she is throwing her weight behind him for the governorship position in 2023 because he is a suitable and competent hand.
She said: “We keep getting a governor that is not from here (Badagry), and when you are not a part of a system, you don’t feel what those within it feel. This is a matter of fairness. We in Lagos accommodate everyone, we should balance it well, and that is what we are asking for. We also want a change for certain areas that have been really deprived.
“I am from Ikorodu, we have been okay but it could be better. I saw that Jandor had courage because a lot of our people lacked courage, and that is why we are in the position we are today. I stand by him, I believe in him, I believe in what he is doing, nobody is a custodian of knowledge, but I know that he will do well. I pray that it will be him. Some of you don’t know the battles that we fight and we are being victimized for them.”
The case against Ambode
Former Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources in Lagos State, Olawale Oluwo, lamented recently that government in Lagos State starts and ends in the house of Tinubu.
Oluwo, who spoke at Afang Summit, organised by a Lagos-based investment banker, Joseph Edgar, also gave insight into the power play that denied Ambode his second term bid.
Oluwo had resigned his appointment as a commissioner in 2018 and left the ruling APC, as he accused APC of deliberately overseeing an “integrity-deficient governorship primary” in October. The primaries saw Ambode losing to Sanwo-Olu, who enjoyed the support of the dominant power blocs in the party.
In his words, “Part of the things we were doing before they stopped our government was building terminals and bus depots all over the state. If completed, the project will take out completely those garages that have been there for decades. It’s those garages that are producing touts. There is no need for National Union of Road Transport Workers.
“The NURTW makes N82 billion every year from Lagos, which is almost 10 per cent of our budget. So, these things would have eliminated the commercial danfo, the molue, tricycle, and okada and the same guys will be the ones running the new transport system.
We never used to ride okada. So, why would okada be normal? This is one of the things we were trying to eliminate. The okada and agbero we see today were not in that future.
“I think the Lagos of three to four years may not be the Lagos of the last three to four years. Lagos will change; the change will be tough, rough, and I believe it will be bloody. It will be delusional to think you want to go and do a struggle and you are thinking of coming back. Until you are able to make coming back home a probability, you are not qualified to lead the struggle. You might be qualified to be a supporter or sympathizer of a struggle but you can’t be at the forefront, because nothing good comes easy.
“By 2023, Tinubu’s strategy is that Abiru would be ready in both politics and finance to govern Lagos State”
Do you think they will leave power and move on?”
On why the powers that-be moved against Ambode, Oluwo said, “Don’t judge a man you don’t know and you have never met before. People manipulate people to destroy people and they succeeded in doing that to Ambode.
“Ambode deliberately decided not to talk. So, it’s not balanced. One side was busy feeding the public with a negative story. I was not only a government official, I was also close to him and I was a member of his kitchen cabinet. I know the time he will talk will come. Ambode has made his own determination not to talk for now.”
On how Ambode became Lagos State governor, Oluwo recounted his meeting with Delta State-born businessman, Albert Okumagba who “told me that Ambode would be governor of Lagos in 2012 and I laughed. I told him then that even if I don’t know who would be governor of Lagos, I know those who would not be governor, that if they were sharing it for free Ambode was one of those who cannot rule Lagos.
And I did not work for Ambode during the primary. I worked for the former Speaker Lagos Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, because he is my maternal cousin and I gave him my commitment in 2007 that I would support him in anything.
“I never knew Ambode until Okumagba introduced me to him in 2011 when I took a proposal to his house, and I think at that period, Asiwaju Tinubu had told Ambode that he would be governor of the state. So, Ambode is not the kind of guy they woke up from sleep to be the state governor. I didn’t believe it when I was told. I didn’t work for him during the primary because I did not believe Tinubu was behind him.”
Oluwo also spoke about the battle Fashola fought before securing his second term.
According to him, “I don’t want to believe that Tinubu has the intention of making anybody a governor and then give him a second term. Fashola was not meant to go for the second term. There was a plan to stop Fashola; I was in Ikuforiji’s camp at that time and Asiwaju told him to start preparing. Whatever that meant, I don’t know, and Ikuforiji was the only one that came to contest against Fashola during the primary. So, people say probably it was because of Fashola’s popularity that earned him a second term. The answer is, ‘no!’ It had nothing to do with that. It’s just that thing (federal might), Asiwaju did not have it in 2011. That was what made him succumb to Fashola going for the second term; he had it (federal might) in 2015. If the party had been in power in 2011, Fashola would never have gone back, because these guys (Fashola and Ambode) are technocrats. They don’t have any party of their own; they don’t have structure. PDP was ready to give Fashola the ticket before Asiwaju ran back.”
Oluwo also spoke on the Afang Summit’s theme, ‘The Economy: What Hope?’ saying, “Anybody can build a structure but a man that has access to state’s money to build a structure is different. If Ambode had known a year earlier that he won’t come back, it would have been a different thing, because they sold a dummy to him and to all of us but I didn’t believe them and I told my people that they were being deceived. Ambode did not fight because of Buhari. One, Ambode didn’t know that Buhari would be aloof and will not get himself involved. Two, he had too much respect for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
“They sold Ambode a dummy, that the ticket will be given to him, but they just wanted to shake him and they were sending people to tell him, don’t worry, you are too popular to be stopped.”
Oluwo also spoke about the relationship between Ambode and Lagosians, noting, “There are things Lagosians didn’t like. Refuse became a disaster; they didn’t like the Land Use Charge, but that doesn’t affect the ticket of a political party. The refuse problem is not as serious as killings under Buhari. As long as you are on the right platform of a political party and they have money they can share, some Nigerians will sell their votes and look the other way and let you write the result. That is the level of our development at this time.
“Yes, mistakes were made on Visionscape, but in every reform, you are displacing vested interests. They would fight back and take you down or destroy the programme. Visionscape has its own problem, but they escalated it. But one thing is sure, Lagos will go back to Visionscape reform; they may repackage it, do the naming ceremony for it but they will surely go back because that is the only way to manage waste and the transportation programme we put together,” he noted.
On what Ambode would have done differently if he had realised early that he would not get the ticket of the party, Oluwo said, “Forget about the party leaders; they don’t count. That thing they call Governor’s Advisory Council is a toothless bulldog; they don’t have one per cent relevance in the scale of hundred. Ambode was too popular for them. So, what Ambode should have done was to have gone to his principal to say, oga, anything you do, we are going into this second term together, give me my second term and I will give you everything you want’. The truth is that Ambode never had any issue with Tinubu; it was people that came in between them.
“Nobody has power in Lagos outside Bourdillon. If Ambode had given the impression that he was ready to fight, they would sit him down. It is about power and resources; power does not belong to these people. The lesson learned is that you can be given something on a platter of gold, but you may not sustain it on a platter of gold,” Oluwo added.
Will Sanwo-Olu be twice lucky?
Fashola was a Chief of Staff to Tinubu for eight years. Ambode was a Chief Accountant of the state. Sanwo-Olu graduated from being a Personal Assistant to ex-deputy governor, Femi Pedro, to being a Commissioner of Special Duties. Hamzat was a Commissioner for Science and Technology under Fashola’s tenure.
For Sanwo-Olu, apart from his scheming to get his loyalists to populate the state executive, he’s also banking on God. He has told those who cared to listen how God miraculously put him ahead of Hamzat who he (Sanwo-Olu) was lobbying to be his chief of Staff in 2015. He’s saying the God who made it happened in 2019 will determine his fate in 2023.
