The Lagos State Chairman-elect, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Philip Aivoji, has said there are no plans towards having a consensus governorship candidate in the state, asking party members to do away with the rumour as a level playing field would be provided for all the aspirants.
 

While he refused to disclose names of those that have obtained nomination forms, Aivoji said there are rooms for as many as possible persons to contest, cautioning against entertaining unfounded fears concerning aspirants or against one another, as the greatest concern of the party and that of every member in the state is for the current governance status to change for good through PDP.
 
“We are all nursing same aspiration to change Lagos for the best. The fact is Lagos deserves better governance than what it currently has.”

Aivoji said this when he was reacting to the insinuation by some critical stakeholders in the state party that the national and state leaders are allegedly working towards having Dr Abdul Azeez Adediran, the lead convener, Lagos4Lagos Movement, as the consensus candidate.
 
The fear is from the allegation that it was one of the decisions reached at the last Southwest PDP stakeholders meeting in Ibadan, Oyo State, last week.
 
Adediran, who defected to PDP from All Progressives Congress (APC), picked the PDP’s governorship nomination form last Tuesday, aside from declaring his intention to run on Thursday, March 22, whereas other aspirants were still waiting to pick the form or declared their intentions to contest. Their lackadaisical posture, it was learnt, might not be unconnected to the perception that the Lagos4Lagos Movement convener, may be favoured.
 
Although findings from all the tendencies across Lagos PDP showed that Adediran remains the best and most popular material the party can present to wrestle power from the ruling APC, there are fears that Adediran may likely return to APC immediately if he realised his ambition.
 
One of the fears expressed is that the alleged sponsor of Adediran, former governor of Lagos, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, now Minister of Works and Housing, is still a strong member of APC and Fashola can call Adediran to order if and as at when he so desired.
 
There is also the concern that if Adediran eventually wins, his loyalty may be stronger to the likes of Fashola and other APC stalwarts, to whom he has a strong affinity.
 
He is also accused of not spending a dime to oil the PDP platform but has continued to fund his Lagos4Lagos movement, instead of the platform he wanted to use to realise his ambition.
 
The PDP stakeholders also told The Guardian that Adediran still holds tightly to his Lagos4Lagos Movement platform and unfortunately it is on that platform he does everything he has been doing within the Lagos PDP.
 
It was gathered that this development is of concern to many PDP members, apprehensive that if they work for him to realise his governorship ambition, there is no guarantee that those that constitute the Lagos4Lagos Movement and his alleged sponsors would not be the utmost beneficiaries at the end of the day.
 
A source in the PDP, however, stressed that Adediran has an edge over other aspirants that have contested on the PDP platform in the past.

So far, some of the governorship aspirants whose name have been mentioned or indicated interest through posters include, immediate past state chairman of the party, Mr. Ade Doherty; former Director-General of NIMASA, Mr. Ade Dosunmu; Prince Wale Gomez; Engineer Rasheed Teslim Balogun; former Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Pensions Alliance Limited (PAL Pension), Funso Doherty, while Agbaje is said to be watching if the coast will be clear and appropriate for him to re-contest.