A former Special Adviser to Mr. Femi Pedro as Deputy Governor of Lagos State as well as Special Adviser to former Governor Bola Tinubu before becoming a full Commissioner for Establishment in 2007, Mr. Jide Sanwoolu, has joined the governorship race of the ruling All Progressives Party (APC).
newsheadline247 understands that Sanwoolu, who is currently the Managing Director of the Lagos State Development and Property Corporation (LSDPC) has the backing of the National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his loyalists.
it was gathered that informants within the party, who preferred to remain anonymous revealed that Tinubu group are aggrieved with the leadership style of the incumbent Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of the state, who they accused of biting the fingers that fed him shortly after he got to the office in May 2015.
They listed the offences of Governor Ambode to include running a one-man show, rubbishing senior party members, patronising only his friends for contracts, frustrating Tinubu’s men out of his cabinet, disloyalty to the party and above all disobeying orders of the leaders of the party.
The new move, we gathered made the leaders of the party in the state to insist that it would conduct direct primaries for all its elective positions for the 2019 General Elections against the wish of Governor Ambode and his supporters.
With this, they believe Ambode would lose out, as according to them, he is not a party man to say the least.
Governor Ambode was accused of building his own political structures to counter those of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu unlike what former governor Babatunde Raji Fashola did during his tenure.
They gave an instance of the elections into the 20 Local Governments and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in the state last year, when Ambode reportedly slugged it out with Asiwaju Tinubu.
“See the way he tried to impose his candidates in many of the local governments. After that, he came up with his own list for Secretaries to the Local Governments (SLGs) and Supervisory Councillors.
“What gave him the audacity to challenge our leader, Asiwaju Tinubu? He vehemently opposed the plan of Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State to vie for the Senatorial seat of the party from Lagos West Senatorial District in 2019.
“Ambode has practically sidelined Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and his men in the scheme of things in the state. He frustrated commissioners to resign and the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Mr. Tunji Bello almost resigned from office save for the timely intervention of Asiwaju Tinubu.
“We will let him know who is more powerful during the primaries. Let him bring out his money and he would see that Asiwaju Tinubu still has loyalists in the party,” said a source, who maintained that Ambode would be disgraced out of office.
However, the camp of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has reportedly
vowed to battle Asiwaju Tinubu and his boys no matter the kind of primary election the party adopts.
We were informed that Ambode told those close to him that he is not bothered about the forces against him, which was why he celebrated the collection of his Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja on Monday 10th September with pomp and ceremony, when he got back to Lagos.
Ambode was said to have vowed that he has the support of the ordinary members of the party and the residents of the state, who he insisted “want me back in office in 2019 to continue my transformation agenda.”
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