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Three days after a former Commissioner for Works in Lagos, Dr Obafemi Kadri Hamzat bought APC governorship nomination form , the incumbent Governor Akinwunmi Ambode today finally picked his form to re-contest as governor on the platform of the ruling party.
COMPLETE NEWS gathered that Hamzat who gave Ambode and his godfather, Bola Tinubu a run for their money at the 2014 governorship primaries held at Onikan Stadium bought his form last Friday.
Governor Ambode on Monday stormed the APC National Secretariat in Abuja to pick his own form. The party pegs its governorship expression of interest and nomination forms at N22.5m.
Ambode who is reported to be facing serious hurdles and challenges over his second term ambition will submit himself to a highly dicey nomination process of direct primaries, which will involve the entire card carrying members of the party in the state.
Former Governor Tinubu who is rumoured to be estranged with his godson, Ambode had last month at a stakeholders meeting held at the party secretariat in ACME, Lagos ruled out automatic ticket for all aspirants including Ambode who sat beside him at the meeting.
He told all the aspirants to prove their mettle on the field by subjecting themselves to nomination process involving all party members.
Meanwhile, COMPLETE NEWS had earlier reported the worries of the governor and his key supporters including members of his kitchen cabinet over the direct primaries. It was gathered that the sudden change from known indirect primaries to direct threw spanners into the plans of the governor’s men as they had already captured a sizeable structure including delegates at the local governments.
Secondly, their worries heightened over the continuous membership drive of the party in Lagos. They feared that new entrants into the party and the inability to have full control over the process might upstage their plans to get a second term ticket, which is hanging in the balance for the governor.
Highly placed sources also told COMPLETE NEWS that few other aspirants might pick nomination forms before Friday to also challenge Ambode at the primary election.
Hamzat , a son of a prominent grassroots politician in Lagos and one of the leaders of Justice Forum, caucus in Lagos APC is expected to deploy both his father’s and his own political assets to grab the ticket from the incumbent governor. Hamzat is an intellectual and technocrat of first order.
The former Lagos commissioner for Works is reputed to be the brainbox of Fashola administration in the area of infrastructure development. The US-trained engineer was said to have developed the infrastructure masterplan that brought Lagos into global reckoning.
story from COMPLETE NEWS
