By our Correspondent
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has denied that Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State is in any way embattled over the contention for the governorship ticket of the party.
Oshiomhole made the comment as he rallied governors of the party in support of Ambode.
Information also has it that governors elected on the platform of the party are rallying round Ambode in order to make him secure the party’s ticket. The political drama was still unending yesterday after it emerged that two of the leading aspirants against the governor were collaborating on a joint ticket. The decision of Dr. Obafemi Hamzat to run as a running mate to Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, it emerged, may make things tighter for Governor Akinwunmi Ambode. The Babajide Sanwo-Olu Campaign Organisation, BOSCO in an acknowledgement of its political ascendancy yesterday, welcomed the endorsements it had got, noting among others, the approval of the Conference of 57, comprising the local government chairmen in the state. An official of the rival Ambode Mandate Support Group, AMSG, nevertheless expressed hope that things would be turned around.
Meanwhile, speaking Wednesday night at a meeting with the party’s governors, the national chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, said the Lagos State chapter of the party was in sound health, irrespective of the discontents against the governor. “Now, the attempt to say an embattled governor, there is no APC governor that is embattled and because we are democratic, the best way to measure democracy is the presence of more than one person showing interest in an office. “That does not make any other person embattled. But, of course, the media can create this impression that there is an earthquake in Lagos; there is no earthquake. At every level, I have seen people claiming that in one or two offices there was no opposition. “In every other office, we have more than one candidate expressing interest. Those people who are currently occupying those positions are not by reasons of those new expressions of interests embattled. “Three, to say that you have never seen Lagos State governor in our meetings is to the extent that your lens is blurred. My records and minutes of our meetings will show the participation of Lagos State governor in all the meetings in which he has been invited. “I think our party in Lagos is at peace,” he said. A senior official of the Ambode campaign outfit, who was with the governor in Abuja, said yesterday: “We are still in Abuja with the governor to meet with some personalities to have the current situation turned around. “The moves are advancing, and we are hopeful that at the end of the day, before Saturday’ GAC’s meeting, we will have something good to talk about. And by next week, we can roll out our campaign machinery for Ambode.”