Fashola’s Successor: APC leaders in search for acceptable candidate

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 To fence off a stiff challenge expected from the PDP, Vanguard gathered that leaders of the APC are closing ranks to pick an acceptable and credible candidate.

And to ensure a rancour-free nomination process unlike what happened in 2007, sources said the APC hierarchy led by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, recently, consulted Fashola to list some nominees as his likely successor.

The governor was said to have tipped five persons namely, Mr. Ayo Ariyo Gbeleyi, the Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Olasupo Shasore, former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in his first term; Mr. Tokunbo Abiru, immediate past Commissioner for Finance, who left to take up an appointment with First Bank of Nigeria Plc last July; Dr Femi Hamzat, Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure; and current Commissioner for Sports and Youth Development, Waheed Enitan Oshodi.

Apart from the five, other aspirants considered to enjoy favourable rating among APC leaders include Dr Leke Pitan, former Commissioner for Health and later Education during Tinubu’s tenure. Pitan is a Christian and from Epe, Lagos East. There is also Mr. Akinwunmi Dapo Ambode, former Permanent Secretary, State Treasury Office and Accountant General of the state who resigned in 2012 purportedly because of his governorship ambition.

Speaking on the issues, a leader of the party, said the leadership will take into consideration the desire of stakeholders for a person who doubles as a technocrat and a politician, as a candidate.
In anticipation of the moves of the PDP, which might want to play the religious card, he said the party may pick a Christian as its standard bearer and zone the ticket to Lagos East. The tilt towards Lagos East follows agitations that the area last produced a governor in 1992 in the person of Sir Michael Otedola.

Since the creation of Lagos in 1967, the state has witnessed seven governorship elections – 1979, 1983, 1991, 1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011.

The last and only time a Christian was elected as governor was in 1991. And the last time Lagos East produced the governor was in 1991 through Michael Otedola, who incidentally is a Christian from Epe.
The other governors, Alhaji Lateef Jakande hailed from Lagos West; Tinubu (Lagos West) and Fashola is from Lagos Central.

APC ‘ll produce another performer — Ajomale
Lagos APC Interim Chairman, Henry Ajomale, said last week that the party will choose a performer to succeed Fashola.

Asked the position of the party on the controversies trailing the jostling, he said: “When we get there, we will cross the river. But now, there is still a lot of work to do. The same way we picked Fashola is the same way we will pick the next governor of the state who again will perform better than Fashola himself. We have them in stock.

“Fashola himself will wish that anybody the party will pick will perform better than him because nobody knew that he will do well when we were looking for somebody who will perform better than Asiwaju and Fashola has done that. Anybody coming will now see that the shoe is so big and for someone to climb into it, he must be able to work harder. The reward for hard work is more work. We will always find someone young, energetic and who can take Lagos to the highest point. Fashola will be happy to have somebody like that succeed him.”