Now that Ambode wants Lagosians to forget the past

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It was widely reported recently that the governor of Lagos State, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, who lost out in his quest to fly the All Progressives Congress (APC) for a second term in office to his main rival, Mr. Babajide Sanwa – Olu,  has urged residents and indigenes of the state to forget the past and cast their votes overwhelmingly for President Muhammadu Buhari, Sanwa- Olu and by extension, all other APC’s contestants to the elective offices in the state.

Coming from Ambode, who was denied a second term shot on allegations of not treating party members and elders well, is a good reminder that he is a real graduate of Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim of the defunct Great Nigerian Peoples Party’s (GNPP) political philosophy of politics without bitterness.

For a man whose ambition of governing Lagos State, reputed to be the richest state in Nigeria, to be cut shot just less than six  months to the election not on account of poor performance but for not distributing the state’s resources to party members, to have forgotten and working hard  towards enthroning his rival as his successor, speaks volume.

Ambode, by that appeal made specifically to his own people of Epe, shows that he is a man with big heart. A man that believes that what will be will be. A man that believes that in spite of all, power comes from God. For Ambode to have stood before his people and asked them to let bygone be bygone, shows that he is a man of the people and a product of a new Nigeria.

Ambode had put up a good fight against  Sanwa – Olu before and during the famous party primary but it was unfortunate that he was up against principalities in the state and party.

However,  whether his folks will listen to his appeal and let bygone bygone depends on the outcome of the February and March elections next year just as it remains to be seen also  if Sanwa-Olu and the powers that brought him out to ouster Ambode,  will forgive Ambode of the grievous allegations he made at that press conference that Sanwa-Olu is a mental patient whose file is still lying fallow at Gbagada General Hospital and that he (Sanwa-Olu ) once spent fake dollar in an American nightclub. That remark at the press conference was an overkill. It was an overdrive. He gained nothing from that revelation if it was ever true. Instead, he lost all. He lost some of those who prior to that time, had seen him as an underdog that is been oppressed.  By that statement, Ambode, as they say, drew the first blood,  but when the time for the real fight came, rather than go for a total onslaught like the Ibikunle Amosuns and Rochas Okorochas of this world, he chickened out. How would Ambode now stand on the podium, raise the right hand of Sanwa- Olu and tell Lagosians to vote for a man he said is not mentally fit to govern them. A man he branded a ‘crook’ who once spent fake dollars in another man’s country.

Yes, you may say that “all is fair in war” but if all is fair in war, how come some Nigerians are so critical of former President Olusegun Obasanjo for wearing Alhaji Atiku Abubakar corruption tag both in his book,  My Watch and in public fora? If Ambode knew that he was not ready to use his last blood to fight Sanwa- Olu, why venture into what he could not finish? He should have damned the consequences and wrestle with his opponents even in a moody pool if the need be.

What he would have done first, that is leading the campaign train of Sanwa- Olu, is what he is doing or begging to do now, after all, he was also a product of imposition and going the way he came,  is not entirely a bad idea.

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