According to TheCable, some key supporters of two-term Lagos State governor, who is now a minister, Babatunde Fashola have pitched their tent with the
According to TheCable, some key supporters of two-term Lagos State governor, who is now a minister, Babatunde Fashola have pitched their tent with the PDP governorship candidate, Jimi Agbaje for the next general election. Recall that in 2007, Agbaje, who ran under the Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA), lost the governorship poll to Fashola of the then Action Congress (AC).
Following the crisis in the Lagos state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), some allies of Fashola and Fouad Oki, factional APC leader in Lagos, defected to Accord Party. The former APC members had accused the leadership of the party in the state of imposition and high-handedness. At a press briefing in Lagos on Thursday, chieftains of Accord Party announced the endorsement of Agbaje, asking members of the party to work with him to unseat the ruling APC.
Joseph Beckley, governorship candidate of Accord Party in Lagos, said his decision to concede to Agbaje was in the interest of the party and to take the state to a better place. Agbaje, who was present at the meeting which held at Airport Hotel in Ikeja, thanked the key politicians. He said Beckley accepted to concede to him because he saw a larger picture ahead and he knew it was a man with better chances that could solve the problems at hand.
“Beckley has magnanimously stepped down for me so that Accord can endorse me as their candidate for governor of Lagos state in 2019. It takes a man of character to have run for an office, got the ticket and to accept that there is a larger picture to look at, that there is a more serious problem on ground and that to overcome it, he has agreed to step down for a person with a better chance.
In the course of his campaign, Agbaje has been engaged in heated exchanges with not just Babajide Sanwo-Olu, his APC rival, but also Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the ruling party. Agbaje had once said he was determined to set Lagosians free from Tinubu, to which Tinubu taunted him that those talking of freedom should take up apprenticeship in vulcanising but Agbaje fired back, saying: “Pharaoh, let my people go”.
