The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party
—John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850) American statesman.
It is distressing that Niyi Akinnaso, in his article, Ambode vs the Party: A misconceived relationship, in The PUNCH October 16, 2018, resorted to hagiography, a leprous craft in political discourse, to attempt an analysis of the recent intra-party challenges of the All Progressives Congress in Lagos State. He sought to deliver Asiwaju Bola Tinubu from “detractors” tracing Lagos Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s “travails” to Tinubu. He sought to prove that it was indeed the party chiefs down to the members that moved against the governor. He sought to make the case that the direct governorship primary was payback time for a governor who “chose to go solo…sidetracking the party behind his candidature”.
But, alas, the more he hid Tinubu, the more he brought the man to the fore! Why? Because you can’t run this narrative without addressing the strong, albeit negative, undercurrent of the Tinubu factor driving the protagonists on the surface of the stormy waters. It is the reason Akinnaso can’t but use Tinubu and party (APC) interchangeably. We all know Tinubu is the party and the party is Tinubu. You extrapolate that and you conclude with Tinubu is the state, a déjà vu, dating back to the days of Louis XIV, King of France, who lived from 1638 to 1715. He said the infamous declaration: L’etat c’est moi. (I am the state).
But we can’t go back to that despotic past that had contemptuous concern for the wishes of the larger majority of those you’re governing.
It’s the reason I was disappointed that Akinnaso’s work broke into a sing-song for the ex-governor of Lagos when we expected a dispassionate and factual treatment of issues, situated within the context of the nature and character of politics in the state from 1999 till date.
His claim that Ambode dishonoured the party to warrant his rejection pales beside the realities of open support he got from notable APC leaders including the wife of Asiwaju, Senator Oluremi Tinubu (Lagos Central). Only a few months ago, she told Ambode: “You have done very credibly… there is nowhere you go to (in Lagos)that you will not find development…I want to congratulate you and pray that your next term in office will be better than this…so we pray that you will continue to take this state from glory to glory”. She joined the two other senators from Lagos, Gbenga Ashafa (Lagos East) and Solomon Olamilekan (Lagos West), to present a letter of second term endorsement that highlighted the unassailable achievements of Ambode and ended thus: “In conclusion, the foregoing and many more reasons formed the bedrock of the decision of the senators representing the Central, Eastern and Western districts of Lagos State together with the political leadership of our various districts resulted in our visit to convey our vote of confidence and endorsement for another well-deserved term for your administration.”
Would a non-performing governor at loggerheads with party lords receive such superlative accolades and followed by endorsement for renewed mandate from party stalwarts?
The columnist also says Ambode drew the ire of the Lagos APC when he scrapped the waste management system that benefited the lower rung of the party. He equally charges the governor with taking away control of drainage clearance and public transport from the party and placing them in government hands. Then this: Ambode “invested N30 billion Paris Club refunds on bus terminals and the procurement of thousands of high occupancy vehicles to be managed by the government.”
Still more: Ambode “sidelined the House of Assembly and the Mandate Group, which is the engine of the APC structure in Lagos…Ambode ignored it, by setting up competing groups, namely, the Ambode Mandate Support Group and the Akinwunmi Ambode Campaign Organisation.”
Now, none of these accusations impugns the integrity of Ambode on governance. None says he was delinquent with the finances of the state. That he has been prudent and disciplined is attested to by the surgical work his projects have performed on the state. As recent as August, several interest groups and prominent residents along with other citizens across Nigerians have expressed satisfaction with the work of Ambode, asking the APC to give him an encore in 2019.
Such has been the governor’s phenomenal outing under four years that he’s being aptly described variously as the Poster Boy of the APC and the Best Performing Governor in Nigeria. Even the Governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola, once called him the “Governor-General” of Nigeria.
But some would retort: “Ambode as the governor of Lagos is a creation of the party and therefore he must submit to the enabler of that position. He operates at the whim of the party. The party is more important than the non-party people who outnumber the party in their millions”.
This forlorn view of the absolute supremacy of the party has no iota of respect for a governor whose loyalty must be to the people when the party leaders want to corner the state resources and arrest development. This dim position has scant regard for the people receiving the benefits arising from the projects their governor is initiating.
An elected public officer may have been sponsored by a political party; but he is expected to cater more for the interests of the citizens than for the avaricious cravings of party lords. A governor is no longer the property of the party once he is in office. Of course, he neither abandons the party nor dumps its manifesto, which is why Ambode is reputed to have heavily supported the party to implement its programmes.
A party risks colossal electoral loss and erosion of popular support if it sacrifices a performing governor at the feet of leaders who won’t settle petty “domestic” differences and allow an industrious public officer to serve the people. The governor’s splendid feat far outweighs the perceived peccadilloes which only one man is blowing out of their Lilliputian size!
Does it bother the likes of Akinnaso that the achievements of Ambode were so intimidating that the opposition went to sleep only to wake up from slumber when the crisis within the ruling APC to deny him second term ticket began? Would it have been possible for the so-called “party leaders” to take the gamble of dropping a performing governor if the opposition Peoples Democratic Party was in charge of Abuja? These are salient issues that should prick the mind of Akinnaso and his co-travellers rather than dwelling on the mundane.
I will end this rejoinder with a quote credited to Tinubu just more than a year ago at the inauguration of Abesan/Aboru link Bridge: “When you (Ambode) took over, I know you inherited a burden of debt. The debt profile of Lagos was high, I was wondering how you would re-engineer and face the challenges to make progress. Today, I can see your report card, you have scored well, and you have shown prudency especially in the judicious use of resources of the state. You didn’t disappoint us. Ambode is silently achieving, meticulously planning, religiously executing and brilliantly giving results for Lagos State”.
Adeyemi, a journalist, lives in Abule-Egba, Lagos
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