APC presidential candidate Sen. Bola Tinubu said on Wednesday that the party could not be stopped in Lagos.
Tinubu said this at the party’s caucus meeting on Acme Road in Ogba, at the Lagos APC secretariat.
Pastor Cornelius Ojelabi, the chairman of the Lagos APC, welcomed everyone to the meeting, which was headed by Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
According to Tinubu, he returned to his political roots to find the Lagos APC family in a stronger state than when he first arrived.
He claims that people in charge of running the party’s activities after he weaned himself off the supervisory role haven’t made him second-guess his choice to pursue the presidency.
He gave Sanwo-Olu and other party officials his support for fostering the APC’s political apparatus in the state, reiterating that the party was still unstoppable in Lagos.
“I left Lagos for Abuja, leaving the party members with Sanwo-Olu, Hamzat, leaders of the Governor’s Advisory Council and other party leaders.
“They are the ones who released me to go to Abuja to contest. I left with many doubts and I was uncertain about what would be the fate of the party. I was constantly in touch with the governor and his deputy.
“Sometimes, I would call the party chairman and ask them if we were doing the right thing in Lagos. The reports they always gave me gave me more courage and confidence to move on with my engagement in Abuja.
“I thank all of our leaders for keeping the party stronger. I handed over to you an undefeated platform in Lagos. The manner with which the party affairs have been conducted shows these people have fairly managed the home base,” Tinubu said.
He recounted that his road to earn the party’s presidential nomination in Abuja was fraught with doubts, but he claimed that the encouragement received from the leadership of the APC in Lagos gave him the confidence to continue and win the primary.
The party leader declared that he was running for president with the intention of winning, but that his fate rested on the party’s supporters, who had a difficult task ahead of them in securing votes for the party.
Party supporters were urged by Tinubu to canvass neighbourhoods in large numbers.
In order to increase the number of votes the APC receives in the general elections, he claimed that the task of reaching out to the party’s disgruntled members at the local level must begin with the 57 local council chairmen.
“Our Local Government chairmen must do better than any other person in delivering votes for our party. You met this party already built with structures across the communities.
“There may be little cracks here and there, you know what to do. Manage your anger. There is no politics without anger and pain. But with the pain comes the joy of victory.
“We are giving you an assignment to go back and recruit others. We must forget about the opposition, let’s put our effort on the voters.
“This is the time to reach out to aggrieved members and invite them back to the party fold. This is not the time to be angry and spill the beans. We must work together to achieve the bigger goal before us,” Tinubu said.
Sanwo-Olu claimed that the Lagos election for the APC was the most important one since winning the presidency would be the biggest political prize.
He urged the party’s followers to put in all-out effort to ensure the party’s triumph rather than to take it easy.
“Asiwaju has done several things for all of us in one form or the other. He has come to this same place to support several of us as governors, senators, House of Representatives, and House of Assembly members.
“He has done the assignments effortlessly in the past 23 years without asking for anything.
“God has now given us the unique opportunity today for us for the first time to also raise his hands up as our donation of the best in class to the entire country.
“I urge all of us to work for the victory of Asiwaju at polling unit by polling unit, ward by ward, and local government by local government,” he said.
