By Demola Rewaju
In every contest between two contenders
there must be a winner and ultimately a loser.
The actions of the winner in victory are as
important as those of the loser which is why
as the plaudits come in for General
Muhammadu Buhari, they are also rolling in
for President Goodluck Jonathan who quickly
conceded victory to his opponent and may
have by that act averted any violent reaction
from his supporters.
Buhari’s words since being declared winner
have shown that he indeed intends to tackle
the issue of corruption for which many kicked
against the incumbent government in a
whirlwind of change that threw out the ruling
party for the first time in this democratic
dispensation. Buhari has said that all
appointees under his government must
declare their assets publicly and restrict their
income only to what is approved and
allocated by the Revenue Mobilisation and
Financial Commission. This is clearly a
setback for those who have invested so
much in the change project that brought
Buhari into power. The other may be a certain
governor from the Niger-Delta but surely, the
former Governor of Lagos State Senator Bola
Ahmed Tinubu will not find such an idea
funny.
Kudos must be given to Bola Tinubu for being
the strategic brain behind the opposition
alliance that brought Buhari into power. It was
indeed a marriage of strange bedfellows as
the progressive Action Congress of Nigeria
found itself in a merger with Congress for
Progressive Change which despite its
appellation was a core ideologically
conservative but populist party. Tinubu
donated heavily in the initial days to get APC
on its feet before other sitting governors
defected from the PDP and joined in the task
of building and financing the APC.
Many have said that Bola Tinubu was wealthy
before he came into government – pointing
out that he, and not just the Alfred Rewanes
of yesteryears, was the financier of the major
anti-Abacha opposition, NADECO. No matter:
Bola Tinubu surely became wealthier after
eight years in power as the Governor of
Lagos State. The topic of Tinubu’s corruption
is the stuff of legend: he is accused (nothing
ever substantiated) of owning everything from
newspapers to airlines. Chief among the
accusations though is that Tinubu’s political
empire is synonymous to his financial empire
and both operate in an interwoven manner:
money sustains his political hold and when
politics brings power, he makes more gain to
sustain himself.
With the keys of the Central Bank set to be
locked in Buhari’s pocket as he promises to
run a corruption-free government, Bola
Tinubu’s eyes are firmly set on holding on to
the one stronghold where his dominance
cannot be challenged. Simply put, Tinubu
wants none of the Buhari change in Lagos.
His former chief of staff and head of the legal
arm of the Tinubu Empire Babatunde Raji
Fashola became the Governor of Lagos State
in 2007 and quickly conferred on his principal
and benefactor the unconstitutional but
ceremonial and unofficial title of ‘Governor
Emeritus’. Fashola typically deferred to Bola
Tinubu on all government issues and much as
he rolled out anti-people policies but never
offended his benefactor, Fashola was fine.
Until both men fell out briefly just before the
2011 reelection bid of the latter. Tinubu
allegedly instigated the Lagos State House of
Assembly to raise allegation against the
governor. When the godfather was appeased,
the matter died down and the godson got a
second term.
If Raji Fashola was the head of the legal arm
of Tinubu’s empire, Akinwunmi Ambode
appears to be the head of finance. A trained
accountant in his own right, Ambode is the
personification of the Bola Tinubu desires to
perpetuate himself further in power in a place
where no corruption drive by Buhari can
touch him.
Such a situation clearly negates the kind of
change we want. What we have in Lagos
State is a status quo that is unpalatable for
the people. What we have is an APC alliance
that has consistently milked the state dry and
deprived it of much needed development in
rural parts.
The issues in this election are clear: the
rising debt profile of Lagos State: NGN435bn
incurred in just five years, the shady toll
collection on the Lekki-Epe Expressway even
though the concession has been bought back
by the Lagos State Government, the
continued use of Alpha Beta Consulting to help
with tax collection although the LIRS and
Ministry of Finance have enough personnel
employed for just this reason and most
importantly: the lopsided development of
Lagos which has put areas like Alimosho
which is the largest local government area in
the state behind in terms of infrastructure.
A vote for Akinwunmi Ambode is a meek
surrender of Lagos State to Bola Tinubu, a
resounding chorus of “do with us what you
want” which he will take advantage of. No one
can deny that Lagos has moved forward in
the past few years but the amount spent to
achieve this is equivalent to the amount used
to build the great city of Dubai into what it is
today.
Lagos clearly is no Dubai just yet in spite of
the amount spent by the present face of the
political cabal.
The arguments being made presently that
Lagos should align with the centre is very
clearly a self-serving one which was never
made in the 16 years while PDP was at the
centre. The argument also that Lagos is being
owed debts that may not be paid except APC
runs both the FG and LASG is also faulty:
debts are an obligation to be repaid not
because of relationship but as a matter of
justice and fairness which the APC
government never tires of letting us hear it
will be at the centre.
The suggestion that Lagos may suffer if it is
not in alignment with the APC-FG shows that
either APC has kept Lagosians in suffering by
being in the opposition for 16 years or it is an
indication that the Buhari led FG under APC
intends to make opposition PDP states suffer.
The suggestion that an APC led FG will not do
the right thing simply because a state is
governed by an opposition party reveals a
worrying mindset that seems not to have
grasped the concept of Unity, Equity and
Justice and this begs the question: what is
and where is the ‘Change’? APC can only
claim fidelity to its ‘Change’ mantra if it
jettisons any politics of state exclusion on the
basis of opposition politics, if that had ever
existed before. Fully appreciating the
enormity of Lagos as a former capital of
Nigeria and the commercial nerve centre of
Lagos, the APC government must show full
support for Lagos State now that it is at the
centre and regardless of who is in power at
the state level.
The choice before Lagosians is clear: either a
Jimi Kolawole Agbaje who has proven so far
to be an independent mind and who speaks
for himself or an Akinwunmi Ambode who is
spoken for by everyone from Joe Igbokwe to
Gov. Raji Fashola.
Jimi Agbaje’s antecedents as a technocrat
who is comfortable in the midst o technocrats
is known to all. His activities as a frontline
campaigner for democracy has found him in
the camp of the Alliance for Democracy in the
past, led him to run on a self-built platform in
2007 and now in the PDP which provides a
clearly established structure that can
guarantee electoral victory for him in a
matter of days. Having run the APC so closely
in the presidential elections, PDP leaders
across all levels are fully charged up to
mobilise and deliver for Jimi Agbaje. APC is
jittery and further claims that Lagos will
become the cash-cow of the PDP –
conveniently forgetting that in the Southwest
alone, there are two other states including
the oil-rich Ondo State that are firmly in the
control of PDP. Such talk again betrays the
truth of what many have always suspected:
that Lagos was the cash cow of APC.
If Lagos were only a cash cow to further
deepen democracy though, it would be okay.
But Lagos has become a cash cow to finance
the whims of one man who has brought out,
not the brilliant lawyers Supo Shasore and
Muiz Banire or the quick-thinking Dr. Kadiri
Hamzat but an Ambode whose voluntary
retirement from public service at the age of
49 not having reached the age of retirement
(60 years) or spent 35 years in service
makes many to question the circumstances
surrounding his exit for public service and his
personal integrity. Tinubu may not reap all he
has invested in Buhari’s government if the
mantra of anti-corruption is to be believed.
But Buhari would not challenge him in his
Lagos stronghold if APC wins yet again.
Lagosians must take their own destinies in
their hands on April 11th and ensure that
Lagos is not made the bonus for everything
Tinubu has invested and may not recoup at
the federal level.
Demola Rewaju is a super blogger and a writer who manages Demola Rewaju Daily.
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