Lagos Governorship: Plot To Stop Ambode Fails

By Nonso Fustinus
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AMID allegations of imposition by the former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, ahead of the 2015 gubernatorial election, aspirants on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are already plotting to stop Akinwunmi Ambode by all means.

It was learnt that some aspirants, at a meeting held at the Protea Hotel, Maryland area of Lagos on Friday, around 6pm, are already conspiring to produce a consensus candidate among themselves to fight for the party's ticket against Ambode.

The plot, according to feelers, was borne out of fear that it may be difficult for any one of them to garner more delegates than Ambode at the primaries should they all go into the contest separately.

“They arrived at a plot to select or elect one of them as a consensus candidate ahead of the primary election coming up on December 4, 2014. Their plan is to pool their resources, machineries and followership together in support of such consensus candidate against Ambode at the primaries.

“Believing erroneously that Tinubu is behind Ambode's aspiration and hoping to deal a devastating political blow on both of them at the primaries, the aspirants, at an earlier meeting, agreed to meet and produce a consensus candidate in good time so as to allow for time to project their choice candidate as acceptable to them all,” the source said.

The Guardian learnt that the meeting, which had the likes of Leke Pitan, Femi Hamzat, Ganiu Solomom, Adeyemi Ikuforiji and Tokunbo Wahab present, and moderated, by Muiz Banire, however, failed to produce the much desired consensus candidate as it ended in a mess.

Ambode was conspicuously absent. This was hinged on the fact that he was informed few hours to the meeting when he was already engaged.

The Guardian's investigation revealed that such meeting was against the position of the party, which duly informed all the aspirants to be prepared to test their political might at a free and fair party primary in early December, until one of them, Femi Hamzat, with the understanding of others, except Ambode, sent out a text message, inviting the latter to the meeting, few hours to its commencement.

It was gathered that the meeting started well and progressed smoothly. After some deliberations, some of the aspirants, including Ikuforiji, Wahab and Solomon, agreed to drop their governorship ambitions to pave way for a consensus candidate.'

Consequently, more aspirants were persuaded to step down to allow for the emergence of two aspirants amongst which others will elect a consensus candidate. At the end of the process, the duo of Pitan and Hamzat were left in the race for consensus,” our source said.

However, things took a turn for the worse at that point as Hamzat, perhaps, sensing that the imminent voting will go against him, raised some objections to the planned election of a consensus candidate and annoyingly left just about 40 minutes into the meeting.

“Hamzat, sensing that the decision to be taken may not favour him, objected to certain parts of the process and at that point, things started to fall apart at the parley. All efforts to allay his fears fell on deaf ears,” our source added.

And to ensure a deadlock of the meeting, Hamzat stormed out of the meeting angrily minutes after his objections. His departure, sources said, ended the meeting on a sour note.

“His departure put paid to the group's effort to elect one of them to square up against Ambode at the primary election.


From
Nonso Inekwere
Abuja