“I really don’t want to join issues with them, particularly, Governor Fashola because I like him so much. I like his person and I have a lot of respect for him. But Governor Fashola is talking from two sides of his mouth.
They say Fayose is not educated, according to them, but he is educated. He is learned but Fashola is not a product of internal democracy. Governor Fashola is a product of imposition, of god-fatherism. I remember when Fashola and Asiwaju Tinubu had issues, there were trumped-up charges against him through the House of Assembly.
I remember vividly that he had to go to the court to clip their wings, otherwise they would have messed him up. And even at that, they still kept a tab on him. How would you be a governor, not elected in a transparent primary, but selected by one leader and you would still be surprised if an election was won through due process? Fashola knows that when he accused Asiwaju of not allowing due process or internal process in the party, Bola Tinubu told him, ‘Have you forgotten that if I followed due process, you would not be governor?’ So he cannot appreciate due process politically. When they were nominating commissioners, he didn’t have one commissioner. He cannot equally say this is my deputy.
You know I chose my deputy myself, against all the odds. They gave him a deputy governor, probably, the only person I think he owns now is his wife. I am sure Fashola has forgotten that he is a lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, and that the constitution of Nigeria says a man is adjudged innocent until otherwise proved by a court of competent jurisdiction. I don’t want to say anything negative about him. I would have asked a special adviser or somebody working under me to reply him, but because he is a governor, I have to reply him myself. Let me remind him very quickly, I was governor before him. He was an ordinary chief of staff at that time. I am his senior politically. If at all he knows anything about politics, I am his senior. We know the intrigues more than him. It is true he is sitting on a prime state like Lagos under the watch of his godfather, but he should not run his mouth. It is unfortunate that a man at his level is talking like that. I am an institution like his godfather in Ekiti. When I started, I didn’t have a godfather. I didn’t have anybody like the Saraki of Ilorin who put Bukola Saraki there. They should learn to allow democracy to run. I want to tell them, if care is not taken, they would lose Lagos. The tide, the movement is against them.”
