A Lagos-based group, Visioners for New Lagos, on Sunday, vowed to resist any attempt to impose a former Accountant-General of the state, Akinwumi Ambode as the next governor of the state.
Coordinator of the group, Bambo Akin-Johnson, also cautioned a national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, against imposing a candidate on the party and by extension the people of Lagos State.
He said his group remained sympathetic to the All Progressives Congress, but would not sit back and watch while internal democracy was being threatened.
Akin-Johnson said members of the group were ready to “fight to the finish” if the former state governor and his supporters insisted on imposing Ambode.
He claimed that the APC leader had “confided in some of his close confidants” about the choice of the aspirant. The group stressed that Lagos, did not belong to any individual, as such, the group was prepared to prove this in 2015.
The coordinator noted that in spite of the ideals of the APC as a mega party, the former governor had refused to drop the habit of imposition of candidates.
Akin-Johnson said, “There is no doubt about the fact that Tinubu has settled for Mr. Akin Ambode as his governorship candidate in 2015. Why 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.
“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.”
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