The crisis
between two ex-governors of Lagos State, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Mr
Babatunde Fashola deepened on Friday with reports that loyalists of both
gladiators have drawn up battle plans, even as stakeholders in both the All
Progressives Congress (APC) and Lagos State are said to have waded in, calling
for a truce.
A former member
of the Lagos State Executive Council who did not want to be named, told Ashiwaju.org on Friday that “some elders are planning a peace meeting
between the duo.”
Investigations
revealed that forces loyal to Tinubu felt incensed by the statement issued by
Fashola on Thursday in which he insinuated that corruption allegations were
being pinned on him by those opposed to his getting a federal appointment, a
veiled reference to Tinubu and the incumbent governor, Akinwumi Ambode.
“The coming days
will be interesting,” an aide to a chieftain of the APC close to both leaders
told Ashiwaju.org on Friday.
While the Tinubu
camp is said to have vowed to fight on, “ to teach the former governor a
lesson,” the Fashola side of the divide, according to a source, “is determined
to ensure that his integrity is not tainted by those who are jealous of his
ascendancy in the polity.”
Both sides,
however, on Friday refrained from taking direct shots at each other. Tinubu’s
spokesman, Mr Sunday Dare told Ashiwaju.org when contacted by phone on
Friday afternoon that he had just arrived in the country and would need time to
get briefings from his boss before reacting to the statement from Fashola while
Ambode’s Chief Press Secretary, Habib Aruna did not answer repeated calls made
to his telephone line.
Dare later sent a
text message at 6:30pm that he would call back soon. He did not.
However, an aide
of Ambode who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Ashiwaju.org that it
was too simplistic for anybody to think that the government, headed by Ambode,
was behind the ongoing corruption charge campaign against former Governor
Fashola in order to rubbish his record of achievements while in office for
eight years.
“Ambode is not
interested in the smear campaign against Fashola, it is a non- issue. It is too
simplistic to suggest that, it is left for people to find out who is doing
this. I can tell you that government is not involved. It is not possible for
government to have a hand in that.
“The governor is
a pragmatic person and ready to move on by restructuring the state,” the close
source said.
Fashola is
currently in the eye of the storm as a group, Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders
(CACOL), has dragged him before the anti- graft agency, the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), calling for his investigation on an alleged
scam over a contract for the upgrade of his personal website at a cost of
N78million.
The former
governor, has, however, set the record straight, declaring that the state
government, through the procurement office, did not disclose the details of the
website upgrade to include some other aspects making up the entire contracts
sum.
Fashola, who
denied having children outside wedlock apart from the three he adopted
following the DANA plane crash, also denied involvement in the National
Assembly crisis, saying that he only landed in the country on the day of the
crisis.
This is as Ashiwaju.org learnt that Fashola, who served for eight years as governor of Lagos state,
might have incurred the wrath of a lot of people within the APC and outside it,
some of who felt he was “too arrogant” and now wanted to take their own pound
of flesh.
Other sources
said Tinubu is determined to block the chances of Fashola from becoming a
minister in the yet- to- be formed cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari due to
his alleged “new found independence.”
This, according
to a source, might have prompted Fashola to declare in his published statement
that he was not looking for a job, stressing that “For those who still wish to
remain in the mud, they should look in the mirror. For those who wish to throw
mud at me, they should look at their own hands. As for me, I have moved on. My
job is done,” even as he threw a broadside at his opponents that, “When you
wrestle with a pig, the pig gets happy and you get dirty.”
Another source
even disclosed that “Tinubu’s supporters could even be the ones fighting back
because of the perceived ill- treatment Tinubu suffered at the hands of Fashola
while he was governor of the state.”
