Lagos 2015: You Can't impose A Governor on Us again, APC Stakeholders tell Tinubu

Former governor of Lagos State, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has been warned not to impose a former Accountant General of the state, Akinwumi Ambode, as the next governor of Lagos.

A group, Visioners for New Lagos, gave the warning in a statement on Monday, saying any attempt to impose Ambode would be vehemently resisted.

According to the group, the body language of Tinubu shows he is favourably disposed to going the way of Ambode, threatening that it would be fight to finish should the All Progressives Congress leader and his cronies go ahead to present him as the party's candidate in 2015.

The group insisted that Lagos State does not belong to any individual and would settle the scores once and for all in 2015.

The coordinator of the group, which is sympathetic to the cause of the APC, Bambo Akin-Johnson, said in spite of the ideals of the APC as a mega party, Tinubu has refused to drop his unsavoury habit since the days of the Alliance for Democracy, driven by self-centeredness, political Darwinism and perceived ownership of the state.

Akin-Johnson said: “There is no doubt about the fact that Tinubu has settled for Mr. Akin Ambode as his governorship candidate in 2015.

“While no one is opposed to the person of Ambode aspiring to the office of the governor, we take exception to his imposition. If anything, he must be a product of a credible process in the emerging new Lagos.

“The sentiment of playing the religion and zonal card as if the two factors have consciously been part of the Lagos political system will be counter-productive. In fact, Tinubu's enemies cannot wait to see him fail since he has chosen to arrogate to himself, the power of life and death as if there was no Lagos before him.

“Only recently, Tinubu and a monarch were allegedly at a function in the state where they both openly boasted that they owned Lagos and would do with it whatever pleased them.

“Therefore, the idea of zoning is well understood. Taking it to the East is a clever way of eliminating some of the strong candidates perceived as standing in the ways of their ploy, by which time the other contestants would be shoved aside for the preferred Ambode without recourse to what other stakeholders, particularly party members think.

“While we would not dismiss anyone who is qualified to vie for the office of the governor of Lagos State, we have a right to ask questions about the person leading us to the next level and above all, it must be a decision of all through the ballot and not a manipulation of the system by a few.

“Tinubu's cave-age illusion that he has it all planned is stuck this time. Let him pull as much weight as he could, the truth is that he does not own Lagos. The ownership of Lagos is collective and the accruing collective authority will be willingly relinquished to a candidate of choice and not any dummy planted to do the master's bidding.

“Enough of this leadership excesses. We are prepared to resist every dictatorship in civilian garb and there is no better time or opportunity to put this to test than 2015. We insist that it is defective; it is retrogressive; it is counter-productive. We will fight it to the finish in 2015 and we shall do this within the ambit of the law and democratic ethos.”