Bola Ahmed Tinubu
The national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu,
on Tuesday slammed former President Olusegun Obasanjo over the recent
letter of criticism he wrote to President Muhammadu Buhari, saying the
ex-President had no right to dictate who the people should vote for in
the 2019 presidential election.
Tinubu who is a former Governor of Lagos State governor said
Obasanjo did his terms in office without being disturbed and urged him
to face his poultry business in his Ota farm.
According to Punch, the APC National Leader further stated that if
Obasanjo had laid a good foundation for the country when he was
President, like he (Tinubu) did in Lagos State, Nigeria would not be in
the mess that it was in.
Tinubu spoke at the Lagos APC secretariat in Ogba on Tuesday during the party’s stakeholders’ meeting.
Present at the meeting were Governor Akinwunmi Ambode; Speaker of
the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudasiru Obasa; the Chairman of the
Lagos State APC, Tunde Balogun, and other party stalwarts in Lagos.
Tinubu, who switched between Yoruba and English languages, said
having brought Buhari in, the party would also ensure his re-election
next year, notwithstanding Obasanjo’s opposition.
“Look at us in Lagos, we can get angry with one another, it is
only God that has perfection. When you elected me as governor, I laid
the foundation. If we didn’t lay the foundation for Lagos, there’s no
amount of wisdom that Fashola may have that will make the state as
progressive as it has been.
“If we didn’t lay the foundation, there’s no amount of wisdom
that Ambode may possess that will make things as smooth as they are…so,
Obasanjo that is talking, if he had laid a strong foundation in Abuja,
the country would not have scattered; things would not have been going
the way they are going. And you (Obasanjo) want to sit in Ota; face your
chicken and egg business.
“You cannot govern from Ota; you cannot tell us who to vote
for; you have used up your time. Let us tell Obasanjo so. Our Buhari is
our own; we were the ones who brought him and we will secure the second
term for him,” Tinubu said in Yoruba language.
He described those who defected from the APC as political prostitutes who were bound by conspiracy.
Tinubu said in spite of the defections, “We (the APC) remain strong.”
“You heard we won in Bauchi; you heard we won in Kogi; you
heard we won in Katsina. Did we wear a bandage around our neck to win?
We went to Ekiti, what did we bring back? Governor! The broom swept
them, cleanly,” Tinubu said, boasting that the Ekiti feat would be replicated in Osun State in the September 22 governorship election.
Tinubu, however, announced that the party’s candidates in Lagos State would be chosen via direct primaries.
He urged old members to hold on to their membership cards, while new members were encouraged to join.
“We are going to register additional members; new members. We
must open our register throughout the state and hold me responsible if
you don’t have your membership card at the end of the registration.
“We are going to use only the membership card of the APC for the primaries,” he said.
He charged party members to ensure they collect their PVCs before
the August 17 deadline, saying they should sleep at the collection
centres if they had to.
Tinubu said any local government chairman who frustrated the PVC
collection by members and ended up with a high number of uncollected
PVCs after the August 17 deadline risked being removed from office or
suspended.
He said the same fate awaited party chairmen, and party executive
members who failed to cooperate and ensure that new members were
registered to join the APC.
Tinubu, however, said any of the council chairmen and party
executives who performed well would be rewarded with the second term, as
a “bonus.”
“That is how our party is,” he declared.
He also warned the aspirants not to be tempted to fight over registration of new members, saying they risked being screened out.
“Write it down,” he said.
In his remarks, Ambode described the direct primary being introduced by the Lagos APC as “the beginning of the uplift of governance in Nigeria.”