by Kolapo Olapoju

Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Adeyemi Ikuforiji, recently told journalists that Akinwunmi Ambode cannot be imposed on himself and other APC gubernatorial candidates of Lagos state.

Ikuforiji, who faces stiff opossition to win the All Progressives Congress’ nomination, says he got into the gubernatorial race to make “life more abundant for ordinary man in the state”.

He stated, “I am not someone who easily gets satisfied with modest performance. I know that with the resources available to us in Lagos, we can make life more abundant for the ordinary man in the state. We can make our little Lagos compete favourably with most of those cities that we travel to, that we run to for holidays, that we send our children to for education and for exposure.

The Speaker boasted that if elected, 18 months later, there would be noticeable significant changes in Lagos state. He also promised to revamp the state of public schools in the metropolis.

“I want to assure you that within 18 months after I am elected and I assume office on May 29, 2015, you will ask yourself again, what was amiss before now. There are many things we have left undone. I am a product of public school, but how many of us are really happy to send our children to public primary school today? I want everyone here to be jostling to get their wards to Lagos State public school even within the next three years and it can be done.”

He would also address the alleged imposition of Akinwunmi Ambode on the party by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. He sated that Ambode could not imposed, as he was newbie who only recently joined the party.

He said, “Ambode was just a civil servant here yesterday. When did he join the party? When? Who will impose Ambode? You can’t impose Ambode. There are many reasons Ambode cannot be imposed and when we get to the river, we know how to cross it.”

“On the issue of imposition or no imposition, let me be very clear about it. A lot of rumours are going the rounds, and each and every candidate has been tagged with the support of one leader or the other except Ikuforiji. But a year and a half ago, someone told me one of the aspirants already had the nod of the leaders; they said he was the one Asiwaju Bola Tinubu wanted to use.”

“I pushed them aside because I knew it was a rumour and it was not possible. After about 10 weeks or so, that particular name disappeared from the scene. Another one came up and after about two months again, that one also disappeared, yet another came up.”

Speaking further, Ikuforiji stated that several candidates have been linked with Tinubu, without the party leader having even endorsed them to run for the state’s governorship.

“I can assure you that some of the names that came up of recent cannot even go even to Bourdillion to face Asiwaju and say they want to run. Yet, they tell people that Asiwaju has asked them to get prepared for the job. Do you tell people to get prepared with the words of mouth? You don’t get prepared for the job of governor of Lagos in just a few days. We should just leave some of these stories for what they are. To me, they don’t exist.”

“Look, the party is not a party of tyrants. I have made my intention known on and I am happy about it. You can see the crowd there, they were not rented crowd. I did not give a dime to anybody to come to that session there. So, that somebody is imposed, please forget it. If somebody is imposed, we did not need to pick the nomination form.”

Kolapo Olapoju