Nigeria -Tinubu, Fashola clash at Birthday Colloquium

Tinubu Told Fashola, 'if There's No Partiality, You won't Be Governor Yourself"

The Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola, got a rude shock from his principal and predecessor, Bola Tinubu, Wednesday after he tried to make a case for disgruntled party members. Mr. Fashola, one of the speakers at the 4th annual Bola Tinubu Colloquium, an event organized to mark the former Lagos State governor's 60th birthday; said that he had been asked by the lower cadre members of the party to prevail on the celebrant to dispense "justice equally" to all members. Mr. Tinubu refused"If there's no partiality, you cannot be governor yourself," he told Mr. Fashola, adding that he had not regretted choosing him as governor. "Ask them not to give me the task, that I'll not be able to deliver," said Mr. Tinubu. "What I'd done consistently in the past, why would I want to change at 60? "I've succeeded with that behaviour and sorry I'll not deviate from it," he added. Earlier, the chairman of the occasion, Emeka Anyaoku, had called on Nigeria to return to true federalism if it must make progress. "I do believe that a true, rather than our current unitary federalism, will better promote peace, stability, and development in Nigeria," said Mr. Anyaoku, a former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth. "There can be no doubt that Nigeria was making progress in national development in the early years of its independence when it practiced true federalism of four regions with more extensive powers deployed from the centre to the regions. "Those were the days of the significant export of groundnuts, hides and skins, and the tin ore from the North; of cocoa from the West; of rubber from the Mid-West; and palm produce and coal from the East of Nigeria," said Mr. Anyaoku.