• Friday, March 29, 2024
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BusinessDay

Presidential election: Nigeria at threshold of history – Ambode

Ambode  and Sanwo-Olu

Two days to the much anticipated presidential/National Assembly elections, Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, says the country is at the threshold of history, as the outcomes of the polls will redefine the future of the nation.

Ambode, who has been denied the opportunity by the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos to seek re-election in this year’s general elections, has been seen in several political rallies campaigning for President Muhammadu Buhari.

Analysts believe that having been rejected at the state level, Ambode’s hope of advancing his political career hangs around President Buhari, who is seeking re-election on the platform of the APC in Saturday’s presidential polls.

Buhari, whose almost four years of administering Africa’s most populous nation, has seen Nigeria emerge world’s headquarters of poverty, faces a strong contender in Atiku Abubakar, candidate of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who has promised to revive the sliding economy. PDP is Nigeria’s major opposition party.

Ambode in a statement he issued yesterday and signed by Habib Aruna, his media aide, urged the residents of Lagos to conduct themselves peacefully during the election and shun acts of violence that could threaten the exercise.
He said the nation was on a threshold of history as the outcomes of the election would be a defining moment in Nigeria’s political and economic landscape.

According to Ambode, it was important for the residents, especially the electorate to see the election as one that they must not sit on the fence but go out to exercise their franchise in an orderly manner, devoid of rancour and all forms of electoral violence.

“As we prepare for the presidential and national assembly elections, I appeal to every Lagosian to ensure that the peace we have enjoyed in the last four years in the state is replicated across all the polling units/voting centres on Saturday.

“Your PVC is your voice and it is what you would need to cast your vote. I urge you to come out, be orderly, take your place in the queue and avoid any form of violence that can mar the process or put the lives of our peace loving citizens at risk,” he said.

He said he would be casting his vote for APC candidates in the elections as Lagos in the last four years has benefitted from the Buhari-led administration.

“The fact is that since 1999, Lagos has never benefitted from the Federal Government under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government, the way it has benefited in the last three and half years. Most of the interventions that we have carried out have made life more meaningful to the average resident of the state,” he said.