Contrary to the official position that a former governor of Lagos State and one of the national leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, was absent at last week’s visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to Lagos, because he was out of the country, Thisday reported that Tinubu deliberately stayed away, because he had personally asked Governor Akinwunmi Ambode not to inaugurate any of those projects commissioned.
The governor, according to the report, defiled Tinubu’s directive to leave them for his successor-elect, Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
Buhari had during his visit last Wednesday, inaugurated some of the major projects of the Governor Ambode administration, which included the rehabilitated 10-lane Oshodi/Murtala Mohammed International Airport; 170-bed maternity hospital at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, among others
The media office of the former Lagos Governor had said the action was deliberate reacting to accusation from political opponents that trailed the action with insinuation that it could be in retaliation to the president’s absence at the colloquium organised last month to mark Tinubu’s 67th birthday,
According to Tunde Rahman, Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media,, the paper noted, “Tinubu missed the event, because he is currently out of the country.
“His Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was out of the country at the time. He was working on the initial schedule under which President Muhammadu Buhari was to be in Lagos April 29th and 30th.
“So he had planned his itinerary abroad taking that timing into cognizance. Even the President was aware of Asiwaju’s trip. He did not boycott or deliberately stay away from the event. If you claim Asiwaju told Governor Ambode not to inaugurate the projects, I’m really not aware of that. And that’s the truth.”
But the paper said its findings showed that Tinubu and Ambode have actually had a conversation on the matter and the former Lagos governor was alleged to have pointedly told Ambode to forget the idea of inaugurating the projects and letting Sanwo-Olu come in, finish them off and then inaugurate them.
Believed to have felt inadequate by such charge, Ambode was said to have run his conversation with Tinubu with a few people, including the president
Majority of his audience felt it was unfair to have compelled the outgoing governor not to take the glory for his own work especially.
The report further noted that when the development was communicated to Tinubu, he considered it a slight and therefore chose to be away about the same time, since it would be indefensible to be in town and not attend a programme that featured the president, whom he recently led to victory for another term of four years.
Meanwhile, Thisday said development was happening at a time Ambode is said to have been penciled in for a ministerial position, representing the South-west slot
The decision to bring Ambode into the Buhari political family, often referred to as the ‘Abuja boys’, was believed to have been informed by the fact that the president did not like the way the outgoing governor was treated to the ignominy of not returning to office.
More so that Buhari personally intervened on Ambode’s behalf on two different occasions which both failed to save him from losing his re-election ticket.
It was against this backdrop, the report added, that the president was said to have consulted with other stakeholders from the region and came up with the decision to include Ambode in his next cabinet, albeit representing the South-west geo-political zone, a move many believed would soon set the President and Tinubu on war path.
“Curiously, however, the last may not have been heard of Ambode’s many battles with the political forces in Lagos state, a crucial example being the refusal by the state House of Assembly to pass his 2019 budget, which he struggled to lay before the parliament sometime in February.
“Ambode and the state assembly have had a running battle over the 2019 budget as some members of the state assembly felt his approach, preparatory to the presentation of the budget, breached what they considered the understanding and camaraderie between the executive and the legislature, including their alleged probe of some of the finances of the state.
This, at a time, had resulted in genuine impeachment threats against the governor, a development that was eventually staved off through the pressured intervention of Tinubu and other stakeholders in the state’s body polity like the Governor’s Advisory Council (GAC), the same group that jointly denied him his re-election ticket”…
