Ambode lied about me, says Sanwo-Olu

An All Progressives Congress governorship aspirant in Lagos Babajide Sanwo-Olu has accused the state governor Akinwunmi Ambode of making false claims about him.

Ambode told a world press conference on Sunday afternoon that Sanwo-Olu was unfit for the office governor having been arrested and detained in the United States for passing fake dollars as original.

He also accused the aspirant of being a drug addict who had undergone rehabilitation at a Lagos State-owned general hospital.

“This particular aspirant is somebody that has been arrested for spending fake dollars in a nightclub in America, and he has been detained for months,” Ambode said.

“He doesn’t have the competence to do what he is being propelled to do. This is somebody that has gone for rehabilitation before. The records are there at the Gbagada General Hospital.”

But Sanwo-Olu said in a statement that none of the governor’s claims was true.

“His allegation that I was arrested for spending fake dollars at a nightclub in the United States was untrue,” he said.

He claimed that Ambode was aware that he travelled to the United States in August. He said he would not have been able to do so if he truly had committed the crime.

“That the governor claimed that I underwent some unidentified type of rehabilitation at the Gbagada General Hospital was also shameless and untrue,” Sanwo-Olu added.

Ambode’s Sunday press conference came less than 24 hours before the APC governorship primary election in the state.

With a spectre of lost dangling above his head, his personal attack against his rival for the APC ticket in Lagos was a part of his attempt at whittling the chances of Sanwo-Olu, who has been endorsed by state’s lawmakers, chairmen of local councils and Ambode’s estranged godfather and APC’s national leader Bola Tinubu, of winning the ticket.

Although Ambode insisted that there was no”rift” with Tinubu, the former Lagos State governor said the governor was no longer capable of moving the state forward.

Explicitly placing his trust in Sanwo-Olu, Tinubu described his anointed choice as “a young man endowed with superlative vision and commitment.”

He said earlier on Sunday that his decision to not back Ambode for a second term was because he alienated people from the government and deviated from the state’s master plan.