2023 Presidency: Tinubu’s Action Against Ambode A Karma On His Campaign

2023 Presidency: Tinubu’s action against Ambode in 2019, has become karma on his Presidential campaign

iexclusivenews reports that the unresolved issue of Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode’s split with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has come to threaten the latter’s presidential ambitions.

Mr. Ambode was denied a second term in office in 2019 after Tinubu and the Governance Advocacy Council, GAC, the APC’s main supervisory body in Lagos, withdrew their support for him.

Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu received such support and comfortably won the primary, which was overseen by a tribunal led by former Cross River State governor, Mr. Clement Ebri.

iexclusivenews reports that the issue was discussed on the sidelines of Tinubu’s meeting with APC governors last Tuesday.

Where some governors expressed concern that Tinubu was unforgiving of Ambode, despite appeals from several governors and emissaries of President Muhammadu Buhari for a rethink.

“The issue of Ambode and Obaseki came up and some governors expressed concern that despite the personal efforts of the president and many governors who came to lobby for Ambode that Asiwaju did not relent,” a source privy to the discussion disclosed.

“It was a matter of concern that if for someone like Obaseki that governors came as a delegation to beg and you were not commanders-in-chief and you refused to heed, we wonder how he would treat us subsequently,” a source privy to the discussion disclosed.

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The Tinubu camp, on the other hand, denied the allegations Tuesday, claiming that the source disclosed extensive specifics of how Ambode reportedly degraded Tinubu and many of the individuals who helped him become governor in 2015.

“Ambode would not even answer Asiwaju’s phone calls and it got to an extent that anytime he (Tinubu) wanted to reach him, he would go through a third party and one of Ambode’s PA’s (Biodun) to get to him,” a source close to Asiwaju Tinubu disclosed.

iexclusivenews understands that Ambode’s replacement by Sanwo-Olu was a popular decision among the party’s top brass in Lagos, who claimed that the former governor had lost touch with many of them.

Governors at the meeting with Tinubu held was at the Kebbi State Governor’s Lodge, Asokoro, Abuja. Included Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna), Babajide Sanwo-Olu (Lagos) Umaru Ganduje (Kano), Atiku Bagudu (Kebbi), Mai Mala Buni (Yobe), Mohammed Badaru Abubakar (Jigawa) and Dapo Abiodun (Ogun).

Others present were Abudlrazaq Abdulrahman (Kwara), Hope Uzondinma (Imo), Abdullahi Sule (Nasarawa), and Isiaka Oyetola (Osun).

iexclusivenews Nigeria reports that  Tinubu, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, and Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi are among the APC’s top declared presidential candidates.