Wike’s endorsement, growing dissent and Lagos PDP’s quest for power ⬇️
endorsed Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for the second term in office as Lagos State governor, some analysts said the Rivers State governor had, by his position, conducted the 2023 governorship election in Lagos State, counted the votes and declared the ruling All Progressives Congress and its candidate, winner of the exercise.
In 2018, when Atiku emerged as the presidential candidate of PDP for the 2019 general election, the former vice president apologised openly at the party’s secretariat in Lagos for being the one responsible for Tinubu’s victory in the 2003 governorship election. But now, about 20 years later, Governor Wike seems to be playing the game Atiku played against his former boss with the Turaki of Adamawa.
This is despite the fact that Wike, alongside seven PDP governors, led by the incumbent National Chairman, Senator Iyorchia Ayu, Atiku, who was represented, and immediate past President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, among others, besieged the Tafawa Balewa Square Lagos in January this year, to endorse Adediran as the best among the governorship aspirants to fly PDP’s flag in the 2023 election.
They contended that caution must not be thrown to the winds again in the party as it happened when the party “surrendered” its platform to Mr Jimi Agbaje both in 2015 and 2019 without achieving results. The warnings were disregarded and the “newfound bride” emerged as the party’s flag bearer even though the State Chairman of the party, Philip Aivoji, who also was said to have emerged in spite of Chief George, claimed that the primary that produced Adediran was free, fair and credible.
There was also the allegation of pride, and high-handedness, among others, which some of the leaders in Lagos PDP could no longer tolerate and many of them began to stand aloof. But those who defended Adediran claimed that the choice of Akindele was to create a sense of equity among the three senatorial districts. For instance, Jandor and Rhodes-Vivour are from Lagos West just like the party’s state chairman, Philip Aivoji.
The cumulation of these developments must have led some of the governors, who initially endorsed Jandor to a rethink, as demonstrated by Wike. Inside sources also said the PDP presidential candidate is no longer favourably disposed to issues surrounding the Lagos PDP. It was also discovered that some members of the NWC of PDP are still baffled as to how Lagos PDP degenerated to what it is at present, especially the kind of candidates the party is projecting for the 2023 elections.