Buhari: Lagos Stands to Benefit More under APC
Lagos never discriminates against Igbo, says Tinubu
The president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday urged the electorate in Lagos to vote for the candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the next governorship and state assembly elections, noting that Lagos “stands to benefit more under the APC than any other political party.”
However, the APC national leader, Senator Bola Tinubu, warned against dragging the traditional rulers into politics, disclosing that the Lagos State Government “has never discriminated against the Ndigbo indigenes and other residents from other ethnic groups.”
The leaders canvassed the views at a rally they addressed at Coker, Surulere, alongside the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; state Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola and his Rivers state counterpart, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, among others.
Buhari, who thanked Lagos voters for voting him in the just concluded presidential election, acknowledged that before the elections, Fashola informed him of the huge fund spent by the state government “to maintain the federal infrastructures in the state. I told him that if I win the elections, I will give it priority.”
He, therefore, said Lagos “is too important for the APC to lose. I am giving you this assignment because the billions of naira of Nigeria’s investment cannot be joked with. Do not attempt to be on the wrong side of the centre. We are now the centre.”
The president-elect, passionately, asked eligible voters from the state “to defy all odds and ensure that you troop out and cast your vote for the APC candidates on Saturday. When you get home tell your friends, relatives and those in the opposition to vote for our candidate in Lagos. The hope is back.
“I am extremely impressed with what Tinubu has done in terms of mobilising revenue to sustain Lagos development. I have a lot of respect for Fashola for his handiwork and commitment to the state and the country.
“There is no doubt Lagos is a mini-Nigeria. Every ethnic is represented in the state. I assure you if you vote for APC in Lagos; you stand to benefit individually more than collectively. It is in your interest to vote for our party.”
Also speaking at the rally, Tinubu upbraided the National Coordinator of Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN), Chief Ifeanyi Ubah, for dragging the traditional rulers into politics, noting that he knew the APC leaders “are politicians and the Obas are not.
“He knows that we are the political leaders but the Obas are not. That was why he planned to visit the Oba of Lagos. We are the politicians. Why did he not come to us? He held a meeting with some Igbos in the PDP in Sheraton and later went to the palace.”
He explained that the government and people of Lagos “have never discriminated against anyone in Lagos. We pay the WAEC of students in the public schools irrespective of the state they come from. We organised yearly Spelling Bee competition. It has been won by children of the Igbos in the state.
“They have ruled the state for one day before. One of them is Ebuka an indigene of Anambra State not Oyo State. Ebuka won the spelling bee competition and ruled Lagos State for one day. We did not discriminate against him and turn the vote. We did not discriminate against him. He acted as governor for one day.
“So Igbos cannot say they have not governed Lagos because Ebuka and other acted as governors here. We sent Ebuka to Switzerland for training. We sponsored to study computer science. We sent him to Obafemi Awolowo University where he got his degree. We also gave him scholarship for his masters. He now works for Oando as an executive.
“Ebuka is in Canada as we speak. We have improved the healthcare sector, especially the construction of Primary Healthcare Centres across the state. To continue the good works, we must vote for Ambode on Saturday.
“We did not just pick Ambode as our governorship candidate. He has the brain, character, integrity and ability to do a good job. When the federal government seized our money in Abuja, we would have retrenched workers and sack some workers. But Ambode told me that there was way out of the problem,” Tinubu said.