Oba Akiolu To Buhari: Grant Lagos Special Status Or Forget 2019

The Oba of Lagos, Rilwanu Akiolu, has described the 2019 presidential election as the opportunity that Lagosians have to compel the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to satisfy the state’s demands.

Speaking on President Muhammadu Buhari’s bid to seek re-election in 2019, Oba Akiolu suggested that unless the president satisfies Lagos State by agreeing to grant it ‘‘special status’’, the people of the state may have to give their votes to a candidate that will.

The monarch, who spoke during a town hall meeting at the Apapa Amusement Park on Tuesday, said: “During the recent visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to Lagos, I wanted to tell him that it was God and All Progressives Congress, APC that helped to bring him to power. And that he must satisfy Lagos.

‘‘I expected the APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to ask him for special status. I wrote to National Assembly that I want to present Lagos case on the floor.”

For Buhari to get the state’s backing in the next poll, Oba Akiola said the president must reassess the need to grant Lagos special status.

On his part, Governor Akinwumi Ambode said the 2019 election will ‘‘send a message that the real population is in Lagos State,’’ and not in Kano or other northern states as generally believed.

“I want to strongly appeal to all Lagosians, 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. That is why we must encourage each and every one of us to push ourselves if it is door-to-door or house-to -house, in our various groups and unions to ensure that they go out and get our PVC,” he said.