Olawale Oluwo, former Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources in Lagos State, has said the power play of the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, ousted former governor, Akinwumi Ambode.
Speaking during Afang Summit in Lagos , Oluwo, said that government in Lagos State starts and ends in Tinubu’s house.
Explaining how Ambode was made to leave office, Oluwo said, “Don’t judge a man you don’t know and you have never met before. People manipulate people to destroy people and they succeeded in doing that to Ambode.
“Ambode deliberately decided not to talk. So, it’s not balanced. One side was busy feeding the public with a negative story. I was not only a government official, but I was also close to him and I was a member of his kitchen cabinet. I know the time he will talk will come. Ambode has made his own determination not to talk for now.”
He said Delta State-born businessman, Mr Albert Okumagba, once “told me that Ambode would be governor of Lagos in 2012 and I laughed. I told him then that even if I don’t know who would be governor of Lagos, I know those who would not be governor, that if they were sharing it for free Ambode was one of those who cannot rule Lagos.
“And I did not work for Ambode during the primary. I worked for the former Speaker Lagos Assembly, Mr. Adeyemi Ikuforiji, because he is my maternal cousin and I gave him my commitment in 2007 that I would support him in anything.
“I never knew Ambode until Okumagba introduced me to him in 2011 when I took a proposal to his house, and I think at that period, Asiwaju Tinubu had told Ambode that he would be governor of the state.
“So, Ambode is not the kind of guy they woke up from sleep to be the state governor. I didn’t believe it when I was told. I didn’t work for him during the primary because I did not believe Tinubu was behind him.”
Oluwo recalled that Babatunde Raji Fashola also faced the same hurdle after his second term ended in 2011.
According to him, “I don’t want to believe that Tinubu has the intention of making anybody a governor and then give him a second term. Fashola was not meant to go for the second term.
“There was a plan to stop Fashola; I was in Ikuforiji’s camp at that time and Asiwaju told him to start preparing. Whatever that meant, I don’t know, and Ikuforiji was the only one that came to contest against Fashola during the primary. So, people say probably it was because of Fashola’s popularity that earned him a second term.
“The answer is, ‘no!’ It had nothing to do with that. It’s just that that thing (federal might), Asiwaju did not have it in 2011.
“That was what made him succumb to Fashola going for the second term; he had it (federal might) in 2015. If the party had been in power in 2011, Fashola would never have gone back, because these guys (Fashola and Ambode) are technocrats.
“They don’t have any party of their own; they don’t have structure. PDP was ready to give Fashola the ticket before Asiwaju ran back.”
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