National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, yesterday, met President Muhammadu Buhari to assure him that negative fallouts from the moves to stop a second term for Governor Akinwunmi Ambode would not affect the party’s chances in the 2019 presidential election.
Tinubu’s meeting with Buhari came as it emerged that last Sunday’s press conference by Ambode where he harangued his rival, Babajide Sanwo-Olu derailed a last-minute intervention by President Muhammadu Buhari to salvage his prospects.
Meanwhile, the National Working Committee, NWC, of the party again shifted the governorship primaries from yesterday to today.
Also yesterday, the chairman of the APC in Lagos State, Alhaji Babatunde Balogun, lamented the failure of the governor to pick his calls or grant access to him, a development he said had hindered the dispatch of the governor’s party membership card to him.
Rebuffing insinuations that the shift of the primary from Monday to Tuesday was upon a last-minute presidential intervention to help Ambode, a source close to the national leader laughed it off yesterday.
“There was no summoning. There was nothing like the President summoning him; he (Tinubu) sought for the appointment himself, and I am not even sure that the governor (Ambode) is going to be there. There is nothing like him being summoned.
“He (Tinubu) sought for an appointment with the President to clarify some issues, and it is not like he is bringing anybody to the table, he will be there alone because he sought for the appointment and it was meant strictly to clarify the issues for the president.”
Another source noting the absence of further interventions on behalf of Ambode said that the governor shot himself in the foot with his press conference on Sunday.
“That press conference exposed him and stopped everyone that had been involved. The president had prompted the NWC based on calls from several quarters to see what could still be done and they were to meet with the parties in Lagos, but that press conference put everyone off.
“The trip had to be called off, and he exposed himself that he wanted to fight the system, and that press conference exposed him,” a high-level source in the party said.