BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
There is no doubting the fact that the forth coming local council elections in Lagos State, scheduled for July 24, will be a one-horse race. The All Progressive Congress packs all the aces. Opposition is virtually non-existent. It was, perhaps, this sense of absolute assurance that once the nomination of the party was secured, the deal was as good as done that made the struggle for who clinches the party ticket fierce among aspirants.
The APC boasts of a solid, well entrenched and far flung structure neatly woven into a one big family, or so it seems, in the state.
But on Saturday, May 29, it was far from a family affair as the chairmanship and councillorship aspirants across the 57 local council areas, who had earlier been screened, locked horns in a supremacy battle.
The initial heart-warming news of a large turnout of enthusiastic party members, who had gone out to elect their choice aspirants as party candidates, later gave way to depressing news.
“There was large scale disruption of the exercise by hoodlums and thugs recruited for that purpose by some party chieftains to ensure their preferred aspirants emerged as candidates ,” a source told The Point at the weekend.
Our source, who could barely hide his anger, disappointment and perhaps frustration, said none of the modalities agreed on by the party in the state was followed.
“The Lagos State APC, through the Governor Advisory Council, resolved that the primaries for the local government council elections in the state could be through any of direct primaries, that is secret ballot or indirect primaries – consensus candidacy. However, some party chieftains at various councils were determined to impose their preferred candidates on the party, of course you should expect resistance and protests, which followed almost all over the state,” he revealed.
The heat generated by the protests from various quarters forced the party leaders into marathon meetings, especially on Tuesday afternoon of the following week and it lasted far into the night of the same day.
“I only hope they realise the implications of what they have done now because a general election will take place in which LASIEC won’t be able to influence things, that is when it will dawn on them that they have missed it big time”
“The party leadership held series of meetings, no new primaries was scheduled at the end of the day, anyway.
What we suspected was that the leaders would make decisions without recourse to the exercise that took place on that Saturday because there was no election in many local government councils. What happened was massive selection as opposed to election. It was a compilation of the list of the children of who is who in the state and I can tell you it did not sit well with so many people, I swear. Many people are very angry just now and very aggrieved,” he lamented.
By evening of the Thursday of the following week, news filtered in that the aspirants, backed by godfathers, had been given LASIEC nomination forms. Our source’s response to further probing later that day was marked with a thick air of resignation and frustration.
“It appears so. We heard the form has been given to a candidate despite the ongoing protest. How can they announce a winner?,” he exclaimed.
Ojodu LCDA had witnessed protest by stakeholders on Wednesday against the outcome of the primaries. They denounced what they called “the arbitrary imposition of favoured aspirants by chieftains of the party”.
Giving a blow by blow account of what transpiraed, another source who craved anonymity said, “There are two camps in Lagos APC now. There is this GAC, which I think is a very fake body because there is no GAC in any other state where APC is ruling, except Lagos and this is made up of old men who are contemporaries of late Lateef Jakande. Truth is they all have means but they are no longer relevant in the local government areas,” he said disdainfully.
He added, “But the leader is giving them the opportunity to control things. These are people who have been there since 1999, but now aging and they feel they should replace themselves with their own children and people are resisting, which is the other group. It is not exactly like Otogee, but has the same principle of ‘A o le sin Baba ka tun sin omo’. That is, we can’t serve the father and serve the son. Imagine an old man fixing his son in Ikeja as council secretary for four years, then you bring him to Ojodu to hold the same position for two years and now you want him to emerge as the chairman of the council. Are there no other people in the council area?
“This was what people were resisting and fighting against but they were able to use the minority to disrupt the election of that Saturday. The consternation now is that, instead of calling for a rerun in places where election did not take place, they made the forms available for their preferred people as the main candidates for the local government election. It was done surreptitiously, underground. There was avenue for protest and appeal which everybody was trying to explore but instead of allowing that process to run its course, they just decided to unilaterally give forms to their favoured aspirants.
“I only hope they realise the implications of what they have done now because a general election will take place in which LASIEC won’t be able to influence things, that is when it will dawn on them that they have missed it big time.”
When reminded that the opposition in the state was weak and almost non-existent, he cited the example of Kako Are in Mushin to counter the justification for encouraging impunity in the system.
“Don’t say that. Do you remember Kako Are? Ok, if you do, remember that Are at a time past was schemed out but because he was sure of himself, he jumped into the Peoples Democratic Party and won, notwithstanding the fact that there was no strong opposition then. So, the same thing can be repeated. But our people easily forget and wallow in selective amnesia,” he stated.
Ogboni Fouad Oki, a frontline Lagos politician, wrote a long and biting review on the Lagos APC LG primaries, titled, ‘Time to stand up for liberty, justice, rule of law’.
Oki wrote, “Local Government Primary election of the APC on Saturday 29th May, 2021, to say the least, was a charade and mockery of all that is decent. I saw it coming and I am glad that, everything that I predicted came to pass.
“The premeditated shenanigans were nothing but a shameful act by those that were appointed to superintend over the robbery.
“The practice of imposition, particularly of candidature, has become a political culture of the Lagos enforcers. These feudal leaders sit in the cozy atmosphere of their comfort zones to send names to the Independent National Electoral Commission and or Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission. It is high time for the National Secretariat and leadership of our Party to acknowledge that imposition of candidates due to lack of internal democracy is unacceptable. State chapters should obey and respect their own rules and extant laws and regulations. Indeed, it is the chief root of the country’s development problems; leadership, social and economic ills,” he contended among other things.
By Friday evening, a complete list of all the chairmanship and vice chairmanship candidates of the party in the 57 council areas was ready. As the July date for the election draws near, it would be interesting to know how the party in Lagos settles the grievances that have trailed the exercise. But given that state government conducted elections are usually won by ruling parties in various states across the country, nobody is expecting any upset when the final ballot is cast in July.
