National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Sen. Bola Tinubu, on Wednesday, declared that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would not record any win in the forthcoming council polls in Lagos State.
Tinubu, a former governor of the state, said this while addressing hundreds of party faithful at the Lagos State APC Stakeholders’ meeting at the party secretariat at Acme Road, Ikeja, in preparation for the July 22 council polls.
Tinubu regretted the loss of some national and state legislative seats to the PDP in the 2015 general elections declaring that this time, there would be nothing for the opposition.
“2015 election was the greatest battle of our time. In the last election, we lost more than three LGAs to our opponents, which is very unusual.
“We have asked our leaders in those local governments to examine what went wrong and work together to chart a new course to ensure the APC wins back those councils.
“PDP cannot have any share in these council elections,” Tinubu said.
The national leader commended party faithful for their support to Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration, saying that the governor had not disappointed the party and the people.
“We are grateful to you the people for your great support during the 2015 election. We have continued to hold Lagos in spite of strong opposition.
“Gov. Ambode has not let us down; he is doing a fantastic job in an environment where we have the economic challenges. He is doing it and he is doing very very well.
“He has a very good team. He is doing a great job and we are very proud of that,” he said.
Tinubu urged party leaders at the grassroots to shun bribery and favouritism, adding that quality leadership and merit should be upheld adding that Women and youths be considered.
“Our leaders should be fair to the people at the grassroots; we cannot please all, but we can satisfy the majority. This politics is a give-and-take compromise.’’
According to him, the party will not use any of the current sole administrators in the forthcoming council poll.
“To appease some people, we asked the government to allow the Executive Secretaries to take over after the tenure of last council chairmen expired, instead of civil servants.
“That was why executive secretaries were chosen to pave way for politicians.
“When the term expired, we used sole administrators, but before we used them, we warned them that `when the elective position comes, you are not entitled to contest’.
“We agreed that time, we cannot change it overnight; executive secretaries, however, can contest.”
Tinubu, however, said 19 former council chairmen, except for one of them who is late, who only served single terms, would be given another chance in the coming elections.
