Contrary to the official explanation that the national leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, was absent at last week’s visit by President Muhammadu Buhari to Lagos, because he was out of the country, Huhuonline.com has learnt from APC sources that the absence of Tinubu at the high profile event was a deliberate snub to what Tinubu saw as a well-orchestrated ambush by the president who insisted on commissioning uncompleted projects, even though Tinubu had advised him to stay away, after outgoing Governor Akinwunmi Ambode ignored a request made by Tinubu for him to leave the inauguration of those projects to his successor-elect, Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
During last Wednesday’s visit, Buhari had 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; Lagos State Theatre at Oregun; new 820 mass transit buses and the multi-level Oshodi transport interchange.
The president’s visit also attracted Governors Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo), Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti) and Rotimi Akeredolu (Ondo), Sanwo-Olu and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat as well as many other dignitaries, both from within and outside Lagos state. But Tinubu was conspicuously absent.
However, Tinubu’s media office had quickly reacted to the barrage of questions that attended the absence of their principal during the president’s Lagos visit, especially against the backdrop of insinuations that it could be in retaliation to the president’s absence at the colloquium organized last month to mark Tinubu’s 67th birthday, saying it was not deliberate.
Tunde Rahman, Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media, had tried to rationalize Tinubu’s absence saying: “Tinubu missed the event, because he is currently out of the country. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is not in town. He is currently out of the country. That was why he was not present at the occasion, not otherwise.” But Rahman gave a non-denier denial, when asked whether Tinubu had personally asked the governor not to inaugurate the projects, saying he was not really aware of any such request.
But sources close to the governor told Huhuonline.com that Tinubu had pointedly told Ambode to perish the thought of basking in the glory of inaugurating the projects and letting his successor take the credit. Having been shortchanged and denied a second term by Tinubu, Ambode reportedly ran his conversations with some members of the Aso Rock political cabal, called the “Abuja Boys” who saw an opportunity for the president to clip Tinubu’s wings and trim him down to size amid the growing public perception that Tinubu is the kingmaker and power behind Buhari’s throne.
Aso Rock sources also confided to Huhuonline.com that the president had never really slept on the fact that Ambode was treated to the humiliation and embarrassment of not returning to office; more so after the president personally intervened on Ambode’s behalf on two occasions, but his intervention failed to save Ambode from losing his re-election ticket to the perceived pre-bendal politics of the state with Tinubu orchestrating and pulling the strings from behind. Tinubu had ignored the sitting president of Nigeria who refused to waste any political capital on Ambode since he himself had placed his own re-election campaign in Tinubu’s hands. With his re-election now all but secure, it is now payback time.
The Presidency has been openly flouting Ambode as someone who has the president’s ear, and have been using backdoor channels to send feelers to Tinubu that Ambode will be drafted into the next cabinet from the Southwest zone; against the wishes of Tinubu. This, sources explain was the reason all Southwest governors were in attendance except Osun, whose governor, Gboyega Oyetola, is Tinubu’s cousin. It was against this backdrop that the president, after consultations with other stakeholders from the region, decided to include Ambode in his next cabinet, to represent the Southwest geo-political zone; a move many see as having the potential to set the President on a collision course with Tinubu.
The fact that the presidency decided to pencil Ambode for a ministerial position over possible objections by Tinubu is viewed by the Asiwaju as an act of political treachery and an insult to his person; hence Tinubu decided to save face by traveling out of the country about the same time of Buhari’s visit, since it would be indefensible to be in town and not attend an event that featured the president, whom he recently led to victory for a second four-year mandate.
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, since February. Ambode and the state assembly have been at odds over the 2019 budget as some members of the state assembly felt, sequel to the presentation of the budget, he breached what many considered a gentleman’s agreement between the executive and the legislature. This resulted in impeachment threats against the governor, a development that was eventually staved off through the pressured intervention of Tinubu and other stakeholders in the state like the Governor’s Advisory Council (GAC), the same group that jointly denied him his re-election ticket.
But the battle lines seem already drawn as Tinubu loyalists in the state assembly, led by the Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa and the Majority Leader, Sanai Agunbiade, decided to suspended debate on the 2019 budget on the flimsy excuse that they needed more time to study the voluminous report submitted by the Hon, Gbolahan Yishawu Appropriation Committee, charged with examining the budget details. Expectations had been high that the lawmakers would finally pass the budget last Friday, but they stood down the debate, ostensibly to starve the governor of funds in the twilight of his administration.
Political observers see the budget stand-off as a Tinubu power play because if the recommendations of the Appropriation committee were adopted by the House, it would mean that the size of the 2019 budget would have scaled up from its initial N852.317 billion to N874.96 billion, indicating an increase of about N22.541b from the initial estimate presented to the House by the governor in February, besides the fact that the committee had reportedly done a major surgery to the budget by re-allocating funds to different ministries and projects as it deemed fit.
This development, as a result, makes it the first time since the nation’s return to civil rule in 1999, that the Lagos Assembly has not passed an appropriation bill by the end of April of the same year. Ambode did not just lose the bid to return for a second term. He has been haunted and harassed ever since. Many attempts have since been made to, as much as possible; obliterate his legacy from the annals of the state.
Since his political ambition was truncated when the APC chose Babajide Sanwo-Olu to replace him, the grapevine has been rife that Ambode will not take his defeat lightly. Like an action thriller, many expect the governor to break the code of omerta and spill the beans on the alleged corrupt practices of Tinubu. If that happens, then the saga would be worth a Nollywood box office title. Nevertheless, Ambode is not one to be caught off guard. As an accountant, it will be unruly to think that he is yet to carry out calculations on his next political leap. Whether the recent visit of Buhari will work in his favor or not, only time will tell.
