Oba Akiolu says Buhari must grant Lagos special status in exchange for his support

LAGOS paramount ruler Oba Rilwanu Akiolu has given President Muhammadu Buhari stringent conditions that must be met before he backs his re-election campaign stating that the state must be given special status if the presidency wants him to back a second term.

 

Of Nigeria's 36 states, Lagos is the only one that can survive without oil revenue, it accounts for one quarter of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) and is responsible for one-third of non-oil GDP. Lagos is also the only state in Nigeria that generates enough revenue internally to meet its costs and currently attracts about 95% of the foreign direct investment (FDI) coming into the country.

 

In 2015, President Buhari secured 792,460 votes in Lagos State compared with the 632,327 that former president Dr Goodluck Jonathan managed to garner. Due to the support of people like Oba Akiolu, President Buhari was able to win in Lagos State, which had previously always voted for Dr Jonathan's Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in presidential elections.

 

With President Buhari declaring last week that he will seek re-election next year, Oba Akiolu said Lagos State must be granted special status. Speaking yesterday, during the second quarter of 2018 town hall meeting with Lagosians at Apapa Amusement Park, Oba Akiolu expressed his unhappiness about the senate rejecting a bill to officially recognise Lagos as Nigeria’s commercial capital in 2016, blaming former President Olusegun Obasanjo for the city not being granted a special status.

 

Oba Akiolu said: “During the recent visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to Lagos, I wanted to ask him that it was God and the All Progressives Congress (APC) that helped to bring him to power and that he must satisfy Lagos. I expected APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to ask him for special status and I wrote to the National Assembly that I want to present Lagos's case on the floor."

 

He emphasised that President Buhari must reconsider the special status for Lagos State for the state to deliver massive support for his second term in 2019 general poll. Also speaking on the 2019 elections, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode stressed the need for residents and eligible voters to obtain personal voter’s cards (PVC).

 

He urged residents to go all out and collect their PVCs, saying that Lagos must use the election to confirm its status as the most populous state in Nigeria and thereby help to correct the anomaly in the distribution of resources. He added that is why the state government must encourage each and every one to push everyone, even if it is door-to-door or house-to -house, to ensure that every Lagosian goes out and gets a PVC.”

 

Governor Ambode said: “I want to strongly appeal to all Lagosians and make it clear that this coming election is a different one. We want to define once and for all where the population of Nigeria lies, so it is not just about APC or about any other party.

 

"We want to use the PVC to send a message that the real population is in Lagos State. So the duty of all of us is to say that before any census, there is one census, the census of votes and that of PVC, becomes a finality that the real population is in Lagos State."

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