In the first quarter of 2014, Lagos State witnessed proliferation of governorship aspirants from various political parties. In such a situation, it is normal for aspirants to be anxious about their eventual fate in the race. But as events unfolded, it became clear that some of these aspirants were merely using their declaration of interest in the contest as a bargaining chip for alternative political appointments.

Thus, by the end of the second quarter, the rains had washed away many of the posters and banners of the aspirants that littered the states, and there was little effort to replace them. At present, some banners are fluttering in the air in tatters. Field surveys show that many weak aspirants in the different parties, unsure of making any headway, are tactically withdrawing from the race.

Some of the aspirants in the All Progressives Congress (APC), which recorded the largest number of contestants, are honestly working round the clock, while others are beating the corridors of former governor of Lagos State and a leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, trying to press all the political buttons for the party’s ticket.

Unlike in the APC, not many aspirants showed interest in the governorship ticket of the PDP. This was attributed to the strength of the party, and its low elitist patronage in the state.

PDP shops for ‘right’ candidate

One of the most pressing concerns for the PDP in Lagos is how to get the right candidate that will deliver the state to the party in the presidential election and particularly in the governorship poll.

A source close to the presidency explained that President Goodluck Jonathan and the party hierarchy are ruminating on whether to present the 2007 governorship candidate of the Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA), Mr. Jimi Agbaje, who recently defected to the PDP.

With the defection already causing rancour within the rank and file of the party faithful, the PDP is said to weighing Agbaje’s ability to achieve the desired result of “capturing Lagos” for the party, a dream it has nurtured and sustained for the past 15 years of return of democracy in the country.

The option is for the party to pick former Minister of State for Defence, Mr. Musiliu Obanikoro, who contested and lost the governorship to Mr. Babatunde Fashola in the 2007 elections.

Obanikoro resigned his Defence portfolio last week to make way for his ambition. But from the grapevine, one of the facts the PDP has been able to gather, not from politicians per se, is that the political actors in the state are seriously sceptical about giving their party ticket to a “stranger,” a reference to Mr. Agbaje.

Continue here
http://nigeriapulse.com/lagos-2015-ambode-obanikoro-may-emerge-apc-pdp-guber-candidates/