‘Agbaje Did Not Lose Lagos Governorship Election; APC Manipulated The Results’ - Femi Aribisala

9 years ago

‘Agbaje Did Not Lose Lagos Governorship Election; APC Manipulated The Results’ - Femi Aribisala

Controversial Vanguard columnist, Femi Aribisala says he does not believe the People’s Democratic Party’s candidate Jimi Agbaje lost the Lagos State governorship election. He also said that the government of Babtunde Fashola has not done enough in Lagos State if anyone would judge based on the resources available to him.

“I don’t believe that elections are free and fair in Lagos. I do not believe that Jimi Agbaje lost this election. It was APC’s manipulation that brought out the governorship election result.

That is my own opinion,” he told Vanguard in an interview.

Aribala, while explaining why he thinks Fashola has not done enough, blamed the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Bola Tinubu for monopolising Lagos politics.

“I wonder why anybody will be a fan of Bola Tinubu,” he said, “especially if you live in Lagos. He is not a democrat. I don’t like Bola Tinubu because he has monopolised Lagos politics.

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“To some extent, Ekiti governorship election was lost because of him. I live in Lekki and every day I have to pay toll fare and I wish I was not doing that. APC is in control of the media to a very large extent. Governor Fashola has gotten an easy pass with the media. It is easy for a Lagos State governor to be seen to be good because he has resources. In the light of the resources of the state, only 10 percent of the people have access to potable water, the same percentage has access to educational structures. In order for the APC to survive, the resources of this state had to be commandeered for political purposes. So, you can see the end justifies the means,” he said.

“This godfather business is undemocratic. Let people choose their leaders. One person cannot sit somewhere and decide what is best for everybody,” he added.

Aribisala also played down the influence of Tinubu on the outcome of the presidential election which the candidate of the APC, Muhammadu Buhari won.

“I don’t agree that Tinubu made Buhari the president. Let’s get the facts right. Tinubu made Buhari the presidential candidate of the APC. But in the presidential election, Buhari did not win Tinubu’s votes. And that is part of the problem.

“All the discussion before was that everything would be determined in the South-West, but Tinubu did not deliver the South-West. The margin of defeat in the presidential election was not much in Lagos. Tinubu, to some extent at the presidential level, is expendable. And that is the problem. You can actually not choose a president just from the North. It interests me that while the campaign was going on, all the northerners making noise that it was their turn disappeared,” Aribisala said.