Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Tunde Bank-Anthony, says Lagos state has been a thriving social and commercial hub with significant infrastructural development long before Bola Ahmed Tinubu became its governor in 1999.
He said it will be unreasonable for Tinubu, who is the presidential candidate of the ruling party for the 2023 elections, to claim glory for the successes recorded by the administrations of former governors Babatunde Fashola (also known as BRF) and Akinwunmi Ambode.
Bank-Anthony spoke on Wednesday when he featured as a guest on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily.
He was reacting to the widespread notion that Tinubu is the brain behind the infrastructural development and flourishing economy of Lagos State.
“The people that succeeded Asiwaju (Tinubu), BRF succeeded him and his eight years was more visible than Bola Tinubu’s eight years…He (Tinubu) cannot claim glory for what they did; it’s not possible,” he said
According to him, Ambode was a performing governor who was unceremoniously ousted from office.
Since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, Ambode is the only former governor of the state who was in office for a single term. Tinubu was governor between 1999 and 2007 before he handed over to Fashola who was in office from 2007 to 2015.
In his interview with Channels Television, Bank-Anthony, who is also a spokesperson for Concerned Lagosians, said Tinubu is not the founder of modern Lagos and his men should not trivialise the contributions of Ambode and Fashola in Lagos or make them inferior to Tinubu’s.
He said, “I read something not too long ago, the chairman of the party in Lagos said Ambode did not follow the blueprint of Lagos. What is the blueprint of Lagos? It should be online for people to see.”
On why Ambode could not get the party’s ticket for re-election, the APC chieftain said, “The primary was held in Lagos, Clement Ebri was in Lagos and he said it loud and clear that there was no primary but he later turned around and said, ‘Okay, let’s accept it like that’.
“Ambode was a loyal party man and he stood by it and accepted it. And he has never made a comment about it since that day but people are insinuating so many things about him.”