THE PATH OF CONTINUITY AND PROGRESS ASSURED
[ACCEPTANCE SPEECH BY GOVERNOR-ELECT OF LAGOS STATE, MR. AKINWUNMI AMBODE. APRIL 12, 2015]
You contested against an old and ancient device, the use of money and power to manipulate the result and thwart democracy. In the end, the sovereign will of the people proved worthier than money and mightier than brute force. Your collective voice remained the voice of Lagos.
Now, the official announcement from INEC has come. Democracy has triumphed once again. INEC has declared me the 14th governor-elect of our beloved Lagos. I know that it is only God that crowns KINGS. To Him be all the Glory.
I may have won your vote but it is you, the people, who won the election. The true winners are the people of Lagos state. I accept this victory on your behalf.
Let me congratulate INEC for a Job well done and keeping alive Nigeria’s hope for a brighter democracy. To my main opponent, Mr. Jimi Agbaje of the PDP, I thank you for a keen contest and invite you, alongside other gubernatorial candidates, to join hands with me in moving Lagos forward.
The people of Lagos have spoken. With one voice they have chosen continuity over an uncertain future. You came out peacefully to cast your vote. Not even the threats of our opponents to unleash mayhem could have kept you from having a date with destiny. And because you have answered our call to come out and vote and handed your party, APC victory at the polls you have sealed a pact with democracy and good governance.
I am humbled that you have placed your trust and faith in me. The love of this state and our common belief in what we can accomplish, our belief in what this state already is, and in what it is destined to become binds us together in a social and moral contract of high purpose.
I shall honor that contract with every fiber of my being. This day I pledge to you that I shall devote myself to bringing even greater prosperity, growth and development to every inch of this state, that I shall build on the legacy and progress of the Bola Tinubu and Babatunde Fashola administrations, I shall bring the best of Lagos into my government and I shall make you proud and glad that you chose me as your next governor.
I thank all those who voted for me. And even those who did not vote for me or never voted at all. To the electorate, I salute and applaud all of you for making this a fine day in the march towards Nigeria’s democracy.
The people of Lagos have demonstrated that Lagos is not about ethnicity or religion but about a common desire to enthrone good governance. Lagos under my watch will not discriminate. It has not in the past. And will not in the present. Not even in the future. There will be no political victimization. Like in the words of the former American President, Abraham Lincoln during his second Inaugural address, “With Malice toward none, with Charity for all …”
In your collective wisdom, you refused to reward a party that failed at the national level by giving that party the stewardship of our beloved Lagos.
