Eleven years after Babatunde
Fashola, former governor of Lagos state, and Jimi Agbaje, governorship
candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2019 election, were
locked in political rivalry, the camps of both politicians are teaming together
for the next general election.
In 2007, Agbaje, who ran under
the Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA), lost the governorship poll to Fashola of
the then Action Congress (AC).
But all that is over. TheCable reports that some key supporters of the two-term governor, who is now a
minister, have pitched their tent with Agbaje.
Following the crisis in the Lagos
state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), some allies of Fashola
and Fouad Oki, factional APC leader in Lagos, defected to Accord Party.
The former APC members had
accused the leadership of the party in the state of imposition and
high-handedness.
At a press briefing in Lagos on
Thursday, chieftains of Accord Party announced the endorsement of Agbaje,
asking members of the party to work with him to unseat the ruling APC.
Joseph Beckley, governorship
candidate of Accord Party in Lagos, said his decision to concede to Agbaje was
in the interest of the party and to take the state to a better place.
Agbaje, who was present at the
meeting which held at Airport Hotel in Ikeja, thanked the key politicians.
He said Beckley accepted to
concede to him because he saw a larger picture ahead and he knew it was a man
with better chances that could solve the problems at hand.
“Beckley has magnanimously
stepped down for me so that Accord can endorse me as their candidate for
governor of Lagos state in 2019,” Agbaje said.
“It takes a man of character to
have run for an office, got the ticket and to accept that there is a larger
picture to look at, that there is a more serious problem on ground and that to
overcome it, he has agreed to step down for a person with a better chance.
“I accept with humility the
honour you have granted to us. We shall get to the government house and serve
our people better than the way they are being served today. The freedom train
is on the move. There’s still room in the train and it’s time to move on. It’s
time for freedom for Lagos. We will get there in 2019.”
In the course of his campaign,
Agbaje has been engaged in heated exchanges with not just Babajide Sanwo-Olu,
his APC rival, but also Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the ruling party.
Agbaje had once said he was
determined to set Lagosians free from Tinubu, to which Tinubu taunted him that
those talking of freedom should take up apprenticeship in vulcanising but
Agbaje fired back, saying: “Pharaoh, let my people go”.
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