— APC groups differ over Tinubu’s achievements
Tunde Bank-Anthony, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and member of Concerned Lagosians, says Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the party, did not transform Lagos as he is claiming.
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| Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of APC |
On September 4, the media office of Tinubu released a documentary unveiling and detailing his achievements when he was the governor of Lagos from 1999 to 2007.
In the 30-minute-long documentary, Tinubu described himself as an “architect, a builder, and a developer bunched into one”.
But reacting to the content of the documentary, Bank-Anthony said Tinubu is misrepresenting the truth, adding that Lagos was already established before he came to power.
He said though he is a member of the ruling party and not trying to discredit the presidential candidate, Tinubu should desist from using Lagos as the only factor in his campaign.
“Everything our candidate is campaigning about is Lagos as if in the last 100 years, Lagos has seen nothing like him. But we as Lagosians, we need to set the record straight,” he said.
“I’m almost 60 years old and I live on the Island, I don’t know a road on the Island that wasn’t tarred. The politics they are playing now give us a lot of concern.
“The politics that Lagos was developed by Tinubu, that is unacceptable. Let us be clear here, it is our own heritage, and our pedigree comes from there, so, let nobody ride on our back about who developed Lagos.
“We are on the same page with the candidate but if he starts bringing lies, misrepresentation. We are not discrediting the candidate of the campaign, what we are trying to do is to put the record straight out there.
“He was governor from 1999 to 2007. Fashola’s tenure was from 2007 to 2015, Ambode from 2015 to 2019, let’s not confuse our children for the sake of history.
On his part, Wole Badmus, executive director of the South-west Grand Alliance for Tinubu/Shettima 2023, said Lagos was already slipping into collapse before Tinubu’s administration rescued the state.
He said before 1999, the infrastructural decay in the state was unprecedented, adding that Tinubu transformed the situation for the benefit of all Lagosians.
“Tinubu became governor at the brink of collapse, at a time when the infrastructure decay in Lagos was unprecedented,” he said.
“To show that Lagos was already chaotic, the federal government moved the capital away from Lagos. This was to show that Lagos was already congested.
“We are not saying that Tinubu brought Lagos, we are saying he transformed Lagos, and people must face reality.”
However, Tunde Bank-Anthony in his own view said the presidential candidate of the ruling party, Bola Tinubu, cannot claim glory for the successful record of achievements by the administrations of former governors Babatunde Fashola and Akinwunmi Ambode.
Bank-Anthony made this assertion on while speaking in an interview with Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily.
He said, “The people that succeeded Asiwaju (Tinubu), BRF succeeded him and his eight years was more visible than Bola Tinubu’s eight years…He (Tinubu) cannot claim glory for what they did; it’s not possible.”
He described Ambode as a performing governor, who, according to him, was yanked off and denied of a second term.
According to him, since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, Ambode is the only former governor of Lagos state who was in office for a single term.
Recall that Tinubu was governor between 1999 and 2007 before he handed over to Fashola who was in office from 2007 to 2015.
Ambode was elected governor in 2015, but lost his re-election at the primary level in the 2019 to the incumbent governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
Governor Sanwo-Olu, who clinched the party’s ticket and won the 2019 governorship election, has again secured APC’s ticket for his re-election in the 2023 polls.
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