It was becoming apparent that the once jaunty Governor-general would lose at the poll, a primary election. Governor Akinwunmi Ambode had failed to find favours with his godfather, the Lagos Kingmaker. His sins are now fully catalogued on the net and lips of those who tout knowledge of the Bourdillion’s school of politics. Not long, keen political watchers, far and near, and the Lagos oppositions were thrown into a frenzy of permutations. Perhaps, it was said, at last, the Bourdillion, like all empires, was cracking and would be falling….

In the midst of the tensioned dust generated by the presumed Lagos All Progressives Congress implosion, the major opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party, paused its own primary. Perennial contestant, Pharmacist Jimi Agbaje sensed a spoil to exploit, threw his hat into the rig, got the PDP gubernatorial ticket, again – the third time.

Again it would seem he would just be running. And not winning.



An Opportunist Candidacy?

One of the most probable reasons that can be adduced for Agbaje’s candidacy this time was the boon he thought could accrue to him from the potential fallout from the APC’s primary. An examination of the pattern of his previous shots at the Alausa’s government house would reveal that he had always contested when the APC (AC, ACN, and whatever its previous nomenclatures) presented a new candidate. First, as candidate of the Democratic People’s Alliance when Mr. Babatunde Fashola was contesting in 2007; and then as PDP’s candidate when Governor Ambode was contesting in 2015. He did not contest in 2011, in all likelihood, because he felt there was no chance contesting against a performing incumbent. It can thus be safely said that he might not have contested this time around had Ambode, and not Babjide Sanwo-Olu, got the ticket.

Might have been a well taken opportunity, though…



Unlike in 2007 and 2015, 2019 could have been a third time lucky for the PDP’s candidate. The stars initially appeared to be aligning until the sky got clouded. How?

The ruthlessness with which a sitting governor was dumped by his party on the perceived whim of a godfather drew the ire of a lot people, especially those who had not always synced with an idea of a capo di tutti domineering over a highly sophisticated state as Lagos. A Lagos, that is the microcosm of Nigeria, had been in the firm grip of an individual for two decades and, although tolerated to a large extent, his excesses were becoming too much with his initiated public disgrace of the governor. A revolution seemed in the offing and would be fuelled by the angst. Jimi Agbaje seized on the angst and drummed up the beat of freedom. It immediately got traction with the elite, especially the social media, often self-anointed, opinion-moulding elite.

However, succeeding circumstances have revealed that the angst was just the empty call-to-action of the elite, whose condescending display of ornate ideas have often time been begun and ended in their esoteric writings, and now increasingly on their tweets and posts on social media. A call to action without an action on the call has often been the forte of the social media activists and influencers whom Agbaje took his campaign to and hope to crest on.



Who needs freedom?
While the idea of freeing Lagos from the shackle of Bourdillion flew well with the free Twitter lords, self-gloating Facebook emperors and the like, those who are practically in bondage in the crowded Lagos slums, in the roughen markets, on the death-courting Danfos, and others, did not receive the message. Or they did not understand the language it was presented in.

Moreover, in the race to win the hearts of Lagosian to give their thumbs to his candidacy on the polling ballots, Mr Agbaje fell into the same ditch of ethnic faux pas that alienated some of his potential voters in 2015, which coaxed the Lagoon threat of the Lagos paramount king. Being a candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, which was reclining into a regional party (South-south, South-east) until the Atiku presidential candidacy and the pre-election defections, it was imprudent to try to stoke an ethnic fire, in the hope to gain politically from it.



Such was bound to split the Igbos, who seemed incline to the PDP, and his own ethnic group, whom he had inadvertently pushed to align with the APC, as a Yoruba party. It is turning out as such.

And Sanwo-Olu appeared a real deal

The circumstance with which he got his party ticket had stacked up some oppositions and doubts against his candidacy. However, the way Babajide Sanwo-Olu has gone about his campaign....

Read more:
https://newpostng.com/2019/01/26/las-las-jimi-agbaje-will-not-free-lagos-by-tobi-idowu/