CONTROVERSY has surrounded the second term bid of Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
While the Governor’s Advisory Council maintained that it has cleared Sanwo-Olu to return in 2023, it is not clear whether or not the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has endorsed the governor’s second term bid.
There had been reports that Tinubu had dumped Sanwo-Olu for another loyalist, Mustapha Olorunfemi, ahead of the May 23, 2022 governorship primary in the state.
Efforts to get the reaction of Tinubu’s spokesman, Tunde Rahman, on whether Sanwo-Olu had the nod of the APC leader proved abortive as he did not take calls and reply to the message to his line on Thursday.
However, GAC member, 85-year-old Prince Tajudeen Olusi and APC chairman in Lagos, Cornelius Ojelabi, in separate interviews with The PUNCH on Thursday, noted that Sanwo-Olu had GAC’s support to return to office.
The GAC, the highest decision-making organ of the party headed by Tinubu, had mid-April endorsed Sanwo-Olu for second term.
GAC had in 2018 kicked against the second term bid of a former governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, which led to the emergence of Sanwo-Olu as the APC candidate in the 2019 governorship election in the state.
Ambode’s predecessors were in office for two consecutive terms.
They include Tinubu, who was governor between 1999 and 2007; as well as current Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, who was governor from 2007 to 2015.
Responding to viral reports that Tinubu had rejected Sanwo-Olu just as he opposed Ambode in the build-up to the 2019 governorship election, Olusi told our correspondent in a telephone interview on Thursday that Tinubu had filled Sanwo-Olu’s endorsement form which would be transmitted to the party’s secretariat in the state before the May 23 governorship primary.
Olusi said, “All members of GAC are happy with Sanwo-Olu’s first term performance and we support his return for second term.
“A lot of our members have also filled a form endorsing Sanwo-Olu’s second term bid. Tinubu also signed the form. Any other thing is untrue.”