Lagos Gov In Battle of His Life To Return To Alausa

Governors Babajide Sanwoolu of Lagos state will know in the next few hours whether he will return to the Alausa Government House.

The incumbent is up against Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour and Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran aka Jandor, of the Labour Party, LP, and People’s Democratic Party, PDP, respectively.

The last few days have not been so easy for the governor due to the recent reality that the governor is not as popular as he used to be with voters.

Sanwoolu, the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC has been moving around the state in his quest to get voters’ support for his reelection bid, even as close watchers of the state politics insist that the governor will struggle to return to power.

His predicament started three weeks ago after the APC was defeated in the presidential election by the Labour Party, a new entrant into the state’s politics. The state has been a one party state since 1999 when the nation return to democratic rule.

But the victory of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate against the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, the known godfather of the state’s politics, who is now the president-elect, has remained a shock to not a few residents in the state.

Close watchers of the ruling party said the unexpected defeat shocked the party leaders, so much so that fear has gripped them on how the governorship election will turn out.

But the magazine learned that the governor and his party have taken definite steps to change the tide of things in his and the party’s favour.

It was learned that all political and government appointees in the state have been mobilized financially and logistically, to go to their constituencies to ensure that the party secure the necessary victory in the governorship and House of Assembly elections.

“Commissioners were mobilized with as much as N30 million, while permanent Secretaries were given huge money too to mobilize the ‘party’s canvassers’, to ensure that everything goes as planned,” a top civil servant informed the magazine this morning.

Apart from this, the governor was also said to have reached out to civils servants in his quest to ensure victory for the party.

According to those close to the Sanwo-ol’su administration, many civil servants, particularly those in the middle and low levels are said to be unhappy with the governor, and his style of administration which they complained don’t favour them.

“Governor Sanwo-olu is very distant from the civil servants. We learned that he gives money to our ‘ogas’, but the money does not trickle down to us. In fact, the governor has been begging us to forgive him, so that he will return,” another civil servant told the magazine on Saturday.

If he wins, it will be by sheer lock as many things are currently not in his favour, analysts said.