Why We Will Win In Lagos —Bola Ahmed Tinubu Boasts

By CAMI EZENWA

National Leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Chief Bola Tinubu  has boasted that the party would win the gubernatorial election in Lagos state, irrespective of whatever the opposition would do.

According to him, all other parties but the APC are pretenders, which would go the way they way they had come.

Speaking during an interactive session with the media after casting his vote on Saturday at Polling Unit  047,Ward 3,  in Alausa, Ikeja Local Government Area of Lagos in the governorship and state assembly elections, Tinubu said:  “We are going to win because we are the only party in Lagos State, others are pretenders; they come and they will go away. Leopard cannot change his skin.

“Lagos State belongs to the progressives; we are progressives and we will remain progressive,” he said.

Tinubu said that Lagos had been the best in terms of economic development, insisting that right from his tenure as governor till date, the state had witnessed tremendous development.

“For Lagos, it has seen tremendous development since I was the governor; before then, the highest Internally Generated revenue (IGR) was N600 million, per month, now it is over N30 billion.

“No other state has achieved what we have achieved, financial independence, as Lagos state; no other nation, they all depend on allocation from the Federal Government.

“Lagos State today will not depend on any allocation before we take care of capital needs; we build roads and bridges everywhere from Oregun to many parts of the state.

“The real estate value of Lagos State has exponentially increased than any other state in the federation. We are the fifth largest economy in Africa; let me see that governor who will do better than that’, he said.

Tinubu also said that the violence which erupted during the Feb. 23 presidential and National Assembly election upset him.

He said that against the backdrop of painting the election as violent, it should rather be classified as peaceful, as the overall conduct of the election was fair.

“I take exception to what happened in Okota two weeks ago. I am very upset about that incidence placing Lagos as if we are violent-prone.

“We have about 1,325 polling units in Lagos State and only five units were affected in Okota. That should not mean that the election was a failure in the state.

“If we should rate it, the election should be about 97 per cent rate of success if right mentally. An incident in Okota should not be used to generalise the whole election in Lagos State.

“The success rate should have been the story, not the ugly incident that should be the story,” he said.

Tinubu cautioned the media against the hype given to negative stories, saying that such attributes would not bring the necessary progress.

“For the media, how can five units out of 1,325 units constitute a violent election and were given hype that Lagos is violent; we cannot do justice to that.

“How can we have development to the economy and the medium of information? In terms of security, Lagos has always been ready to celebrate democracy, and violence free.

“The security officials are doing well and the INEC has started well too with the logistics well managed.

“The voters came out en masse,” he said.