Ambode vs Agbaje: Between Naivety and Impatience – By @Obajeun

As hard as it is to accept, either we like it or not, Tinubu is the biggest factor in Nigerian politics today. As a political entrepreneur, Tinubu has stepped in as a big deal in our evolutionary process. Not even the former king maker of Kwara, Olusola Saraki or the Ibadan extract of penkelemesi era, Adedibu, can command the level of political sophistication Tinubu now wields. Everywhere in Nigeria, starting from Lagos, the handwriting of Tinubu is very bold.

However, for the first time, Lagos is a living witness to a contest and for the first time too; Tinubu is running the seaside and the mainland hustling for support, unlike before when the magic wand of naira worked from the comfort of his bed. While Tinubu sits atop Lagos, he has the last battle of his life to fight in coming days. No doubt, times have changed.

For some of us that have observed the landscape over the years, we have seen Lagos moved from stasis progress to what some pundits described as a phenomenal leap frog. For the none liberal ones, there is no point deifying someone who has only done what is required of him, what he is being paid for on monthly basis. Anyways, when the same person is the only one doing what is required of him among multitude and given that such individual has for long been starved of the country, then deifying such person might just be something that could come unforced.

The discourse is not about Fashola and Tinubu, it is about Lagosians and the two individuals fronting the banners of leadership competition. Here, we are talking about the perceptive Pharmacist of the Great Ife extraction, Jimi Agbaje and the relentless UNILAG trained Accountant, Akinwunmi Ambode.

Jimi Agbaje

The Fellow of the West African Post Graduate College of Pharmacists (FPCPharm), Jimi’s biggest public service was when he served as a member of the Lagos Hospitals Management Board between 1994 and 1997. Spurred by the annulment of the general elections in 1993, Jimi aligned with Afenifere and in 2007 picked a nomination form in the defunct Action Congress (AC). He left AC as an aggrieved candidate when it was believed that the outgoing Governor, Tinubu had concluded fronting Fashola even before the primaries. Jimi ran for the 2007 elections under Democratic People’s Alliance (DPA) and drilled the best campaign in that election year, but lost. When DPA was deregistered, Jimi, who was out of line with Tinubu, joined the PDP and won the gubernatorial primaries in 2015 in circumstances reported as flawed.

He is back on the trenches.

Jimi’s greatest strength is his appeal to the high class Lagosians and a part of the middleclass who are tired of the status quo. He is blessed with excellent oratory gab and the fact that he is a fresh blood, who looks untainted, is another advantage that is surging his popularity. Unlike in 2007, Jimi looks ready and hungry. He appears as a serious contender and barring the circumstances that saw his emergence as the flag bearer of PDP, he is warmly building the momentum of contest. Jimi’s ‘Bold Idea’, his campaign slogan, has grew in reach in the last couple of weeks, just after the historic postponement. While he is running on a blank blueprint of his political party with little or no pointers as evidence of his capability at such level of public engagement, he has succeeded in brewing steam around his personal agenda that stands on education. On the basis of personal drive, Jimi soars high. For instance, riding on his popularity in Lekki, he promised Lekki residents that he would dismantle the tollgates and the PPP arrangement describing the set-up as fraud. Expectedly, some pundits have taken him to the cleaners on this promise. While Lekki residents, all through to Epe might find a reason to align with him, it should be noted that this axis controls less than 5% of the voting population of Lagos.

The 58 year old has some odds to contend with, bulk of which is founded on the pedestal of PDP. In a bid to sell himself, he has to sell his political party and this he has done unsuccessfully. He has been reported widely of some judgment errors spanning his limitation to halt violence as a politician and his reasons in supporting Jonathan’s re-election. One may be safe to say his reading of political trends is faulty and he runs the risk of response immaturity to clear some political posers.

While he is appealing in that he is coming clean, the fact that he is shouldering Jonathan’s campaign has adversely dropped his ego among residents on the mainland of Lagos, where more than 70% of the voting population of Lagos resides. He has productively engaged people in debates, even deflating his opponent’s strength in one. Typical of Great Ife extraction, Jimi runs his show on pure intelligence. However, his greatest undoing was to have left the political empire of Tinubu where he would have been taken through the mathematics of politics where often, logic doesn’t work. He was impatient.

Akin Ambode

The Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria (ICAN), Ambode’s biggest public life service was when he served as the Accountant General of Lagos. He was 21 when he bagged his first degree. In 1988, he was appointed the Assistant Treasurer, Badagry Local Government. In 1991, he was posted to Shomolu Local Government as Auditor. He was later deployed to Alimosho Local Government as Council Treasurer. Ambode was posted back to Shomolu as Council Treasurer and later on to Mushin Local Government as Council Treasurer. He criss-crossed many Local Government Councils in different roles in a 10-year period. In 1998, Ambode was awarded the US Fulbright Scholarship for the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship program, in Boston University, Massachusetts, USA. His Fellowship Year was spent studying Public Leadership with emphasis on Finance and Accounting.

Ambode is a student of Tinubu’s political school.

Ambode’s greatest strength is his relentless effort in criss-crossing the corners of Lagos. He is loud and well schooled in the reading of political trends. As a new gamer, he is reported to be clean like Jimi but with wider network of movers of political fortunes. He contested against Fashola’s man, Olasupo Sashore and a host of others at the primaries and emerged as a popular candidate having won by a landslide. Wholly backed by the outgoing governor, Ambode looks very ready, hungry and appears that he has the muscle to shoulder the complex nature of Lagos. His political party, APC, has successfully held on to Lagos for 16 years, seeing Lagos evolution from notorious lawlessness to a considerable lawful state. Nigeria’s most respected governor in recent years, Fashola, in a recent interview, said that the cost of law enforcement has reduced significantly in Lagos, meaning that Lagosians are fast becoming law abiding.

Ambode’s greatest advantage is that his party has a blueprint document for its programmes, which has made the task of selling his candidacy a lot easier. While he is at a disadvantage in terms oratory gab, he wields robust grassroots platforms on which he is riding on smoothly. Much thanks Fashola’s personal involvement in the campaign train, which some pundits have described as an act with ordinary face value. Either we like it or not, Ambode runs the risk of being dubbed the most popular new entrant gubernatorial aspirant in Nigeria, more popular than some sitting governors, for example, Martin Elechi of Ebonyi State, who made it into the limelight of discourse two weeks ago for his impeachment drama.

Ambode runs on his leveraged experience in public service and robust political understanding of the current forces at play.

Like Jimi, there are odds against the 52 year old. His perception of being a stooge to the biggest political entrepreneur in Nigeria today, Bola Tinubu, is a major block. But this has also worked in his favour as the former governor has a way with the voting population of Lagos. This is based on the fact that Fashola was also stigmatized in 2007 but went ahead to prove that going through Tinubu’s school wasn’t a miss. Lagosians may want to gamble once again, even as Ambode has shown some forgivable naivety. Unlike Jimi, Ambode looks like he doesn’t have a personal agenda, his personal vision and legacies. Here, he could have been made lazy by the blueprint his political party is fronting. But given his foray through the financial management of local governments across Lagos, voters may want to gravitate around him.

Verdict

The result of the presidential election will swing the trend of the gubernatorial election in Lagos. With Buhari riding on the momentum his personality is garnering, it looks convincing that he will emerge victorious in Lagos. Unlike in 2011 when voters were poised for Jonathan, the dynamics has changed and a lot of reconfiguration has taken place. Voters in Lagos are not traditional voters; a lot of sentiment goes into their decisions. As it stands, trends are showing that voters are more disposed to the APC candidate. Jimi is suffering from the extreme desperation from Jonathan’s camp, which in a way, has hindered him from warming into the streets of Lagos. For instance, pro-Jonathan campaigners under the auspices of OPC took to the streets of Lagos, disrupting public peace. While Jimi keeps fronting Jonathan, the president keeps running into unforced errors. However, another tactic that may work in favour of the PDP candidate is the use of military on election days, this PDP knows how to do with its success in Ekiti.