Lagos: Ambode Aides Reach Out To Tinubu

By Fola James

Akinwunmi Ambode, a former Lagos state governor must now appease the gods of his forefathers so that the darkness hovering over his political future can disappear.

In the last few days, the Epe born politician, the magazine was told has been trying to reach out to the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC to mend fences.

“Some of us who worked with him and close to Asiwaju has been contacted to broker peace. The effort is still ongoing,” said one APC leader in Alimosho.

Ambode seems to have weighed options against some forces in the state who denied him the opportunity to rule the state for a second term and are still bent on nailing his political coffin forever.

This followed his failure, on Thursday to stop the state House of Assembly from probing some of his financial transactions while in occupying Alausa State House.

For instance, the assembly has opened a probe on the purchase of over 800 buses by Ambode’s administration for the state’s owned transport scheme.

The former governor went to court to stop the probe but has now been directed by the court to prove his innocence before the lawmakers.

On Thursday, Justice Yetunde Adesanya of an Ikeja High Court, directed the state assembly to go ahead with the probe over the former administration’s  purchase of 820 buses for Bus Reform Project.

The judge said the adhoc committee set up to probe the former governor is a fact-finding panel and not an indictment body, therefore it has no power to stop it from performing its work.

Justice Adesanya ruled that “The claimant (Ambode) has not been indicted. An invitation by an agency of government cannot in any way cause a breach of the threat of the fundamental rights of the claimant.

“I hereby find that the claimant’s action is an invitation to the court to cripple the legislative exercise of the statutory power of the Lagos State House of Assembly under Section 128 and 129 of the 1999 Constitution.

“That is not the function of the court, and no court of law should accede such invitation. The claimant’s suit is hereby struck out,” she said.

Those close to the former governor told the magazine on Friday that the former helmsman’s camp has been in confusion after the ruling, even though he has directed his lawyers to appeal the judgment.

Notwithstanding, the assembly will now go ahead to open the probe on the buses purchase, believed by some lawmakers to be a Pandora box of sort.

Apart from this, it was also learnt that more probes will be opened in the next few months to embarrass the former administration.

These includes investigations on the contracts awarded under his four -year government, particularly those related to roads construction and other physical projects running into several billions of naira.

“Multi-billion naira contracts were believed to have been awarded to cronies under his government. Those that lost out are very close to a prominent politician in the state, they believe now is their opportunity to fight back,” Fola Davis, an analyst in Lagos said.

He said everything is being done to destroy the influence and legacies of the former APC governor “so that he can now begin to beg for forgiveness from those he offended while in office.”

“That’s the trend in Lagos. The prodigal son must beg the godfather to continue to be relevant in the politics of the state. Remember Obanikoro, Femi Pedro and the rest of them, they all went back to the Leader to ask for his forgives. They have all been forgiven and now fully back in the family,” an APC chieftain in the state said.

Meanwhile, some aides of the former government told the magazine that their principal will fight to the end. “He did nothing wrong. What they have against him is that he served Lagos as a true man of the people,” one of them said on Saturday.