The Scent of Victory in Lagos Elections

It is generally admitted in politics, as with any competition that failure is an orphan. In contradistinction the smell of victory and thetaste of success is known to be sweet . In the Lagos state governorship elections in which Jimi Agbaje of the PDP and Akin Ambode of the APC will lock horns in the election of April 11 2015 the dust of campaign is clearing and it is becoming clear who Lagosians will vote for in that historical and crucial election. Amongst Lagosians generally it is becoming obvious by the day that change is imminent in Alausa.

Definitely this is a development that should be worry some to the ruling party in the state for the past 16 years and that is the APC. Curiously enough the APC is advocating change in Abuja and continuity in Alausa. But it has confused its teeming supporters in the process of campaign all over Lagos where the slogan is change ostensibly because the party leaders have taken their victory in Lagos for granted. Inadvertently they have forgotten that Lagosians are even more interested in their fate in Lagos than the person who occupies Aso Rock in the March 28 elections. This is because of the proverb they invoke which says when your house is on fire you put it out first before that of your neighbor.

To Lagosians the way the APC campaign team has been conducting its campaign has shown clearly that it lacks confidence in its candidate Akin Ambode who has been tied to the apron string of the incumbent governor of the state Raji Fashola who although he

is a lawyer is not much of an articulate person and politician himself. Keen watchers of Lagos 2015 elections campaigns have seen this lack of confidence in the ability of Akin Ambode to say the correct things to win votes as the first sign that his candidature is very vulnerable especially in a state where it has always been taken for granted that whoever godfather Bola Tinubu picks will have a walk over to the governor’s lodge at Alausa. This has been the trend for the last 16 years but the emergence of Jimi Agbaje as the PDP governorship candidate has tilted the pendulum of power against the APC in the forthcoming April 11 governorship elections in the state. Indeed the worry amongst the Lagos electorate and Lagosians in general is not that Agbaje and the PDP will claim Lagos in the governorship elections but by what margin of victory . Again the reason and tell tale signs are there for all to see .

The first is that Lagosians have successfully resented and resisted the winner takes all attitude of the Akin Ambode Campaign Machinery which brought on board its own personnel and shunned Fashola loyalists after the APC primaries that gave the party governorship ticket to Akin Ambode . The Ambode people forgot that the Fashola loyalists are still in power and wielded enormous power clout which they have used to highlight Ambode’s inarticulation and incoherence of ideas even as their leader was forced to campaign for Ambode all over Lagos . These loyalists have become bona fide fifth columnists in the APC campaign machinery and it is not too certain that some of them are not working for the emergent and victory – sensing Jimi Agbaje PDP campaign machinery .

In many instances Lagosians have started seeing hitherto inaccessible and unavailable powerful Lagos state officials and even Commissioners showing up at parties and social events which they have shunned with contempt in the recent past . The message they seem to be passing to their surprised acquaintances is that they are back because the game is up and they know for certain that it can not be business as usual in the corridors of power in Lagos politics . This is because the Jimi Agbaje PDP campaign in Lagos state has upset the apple cart of power in Alausa and a non member of the ruling APC is poised to wrest power from the powers that be in the leadership of the party in the state . Such is the scent of victory and joy amongst Lagosians and defected APC supporters that they now only pray to God and for good health to see them through to April 11 when they cast their ballot to seal Jimi Agbaje’s victory as the next governor of Lagos state Insha Allah.