2023: Tinubu’s action on Ambode haunts campaign 

Former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is in the race to contest for President and he would need to get the presidential ticket of his party.

As a matter of fact, Tinubu has hit the ground running by making consultations, meeting different people and groups on that matter. Last week, immediately after Vice President Yemi Osinbajo declared he would contest for the post too, Tinubu held a meeting with Governors that were elected on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.

Some APC Governors still remember how one of them before, the then Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State was treated and denied APC Ticket to seek reelection in 2019. According to a report by Vanguard, some of the APC Governors are angry that Tinubu ignored all their efforts to make him and Lagos APC to consider Ambode and give Ambode the ticket then.

An insider who was privy to the meeting said that apart from refusing to heed the pleas of the APC Governors who reached out to him severally on the issue and later visited him, Tinubu also turned down several delegations sent to him by President Muhammadu Buhari to soft-pedal on Ambode and back him to get the ticket then. So, the APC Governors that hold this view beleiv that it is time to pay him back.

Apart from Ambode, they even argued that the same issue played out in the case involving Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State to the extent that he had to defect to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Those Governors who think this way also believe that if Tinubu could refuse to consider the various interventions to make him grant what they asked, it means that he would be harder if he becomes the President. This may make some of the Governors to work against him at the primary.