The real issues in Lagos APC LG primaries

The Babatunde Ogala, SAN, OFR-led Lagos All Progressives Congress (APC) Election Organizing Committee has a few questions to answer:

– Why was balloting not witnessed by agents of the aspirants?

– Why were delegates ushered out of the state secretariat immediately after voting and vote tallying not done immediately in their presence?

– Why were the ballot boxes hidden from the media and agents, kept out of sight, until the end of the voting exercise?

– Why were the boxes only brought out to be tallied, since the media and the agents had no supervisory sight of them?

– Why did the declared votes in many councils exceed the number of accredited delegates?

Take Mosan Okunola LCDA for example:

24 delegates were accredited.

26 votes were declared, 23 for Adunni Opeyemi Akindele, 2 for Barr. Rotimi Ekundayo Ogunwuyi, and 1 for Omo-Oba Akintola Falade.

The Supreme Court, where Ogala SAN was admitted into the noble legal profession has ruled that where votes exceed the number of accredited voters, such votes are null and void.

There are 27 total delegates in Mosan Okunola LCDA. Two of them, Adunni Akindele and Fredrick Oduwole were candidates. One Alhaji Tajudeen Dawodu is deceased.

So, how did a contestant and a dead man manage to vote?

It’s a miracle, one that repeated itself in many councils during the May 10 Chairmanship Primaries.

The Ogala led committee political assault against Alimosho federal constituency delegates started on the morning of Saturday May 10 as delegates from the six councils in the constituency were refused accreditation and access to APC  state secretariat

“Alimosho LGA delegates arrived ACME at the stipulated time but we’re not allowed to walk through the security barricade. After hours of waiting while the exercise had started at the venue, we started protesting and we were consequently told to go back home because the primaries will not hold for Alimosho Federal Constituency due to security threats.

“So, the delegates left, only to be invited back at 4pm. We were ushered in by the security operatives with guns, filled in single roll through an entrance and in two minutes either we are done or not with the ballots, we were made to leave through another exit out of the state secretariat. The agents weren’t allowed in throughout the voting exercise. While monitoring the collation online, we discovered that the the ballot box wherein we cast our votes was not branded, the ballot that was used to make results declaration was branded Alimosho LGA.” submits Uche John delegate and Youth Leader.

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In Agbado Oke-Odo LCDA Abiodun Ishola Jimoh aka Abiodun Ejigbadero, who ought to have failed clearance for not being a member of the party in the council was awarded 16 votes, while the incumbent Hon Engr David Famuyiwa with the firm support of 14 delegates was announced as having four to the shock and disbelief of all party members in the council.

In Mushin Local Government, the political battle was intense. It was between Senator Ganiyu Olanrewaju Solomon, who had taken full control of the party structure, and Dr. Muiz Banire, a former member who returned unexpectedly, claiming he had received the President’s Mandate. Delegates were threatened. The message was clear: anyone who disobeyed would not live to tell the story.

Out of fear, most delegates said they voted for Senator Solomon’s chosen candidate. To everyone’s shock, the total number of votes counted was more than the actual number of delegates. According to Owodunni Bello Ward B Mushin APC

The grand electoral heist orchestrated by the Ogala-led committee deserves a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

For a Senior Advocate of Nigeria to superintend such blatant rigging, a probe by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), International Bar Association (IBA), Body of Senior Attorneys of Nigeria, and International Federation of Electoral Systems (IFES) is not only necessary, it’s urgent.

As for the Lawal Pedro SAN Appeal Committee, it merely sat to fulfill all righteousness. None of the aggrieved aspirants received a single communication from them, after the exercise. The petitioners are still waiting for the Appeal Committee report as led by the Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice.

Meanwhile, the Lagos APC collected ₦5.5 million each from over 500 chairmanship aspirants, and ₦1.1 million from over 2,000 councillorship aspirants, only to treat them with contempt unworthy of a so-called progressive party.

The painful truth?

Councillorship primaries didn’t hold in many places, especially in the six councils under the Alimosho Federal Constituency. Chairmanship candidates were simply told to write the names of councillorship candidates loyal to them.

One APC Executive Committee member (Disability Cluster), popularly called Oosha, boasted that the list of “preferred” candidates had long been said to be approved by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, and was merely handed to the Ogala-led committee for execution.

Only a few councils escaped this pre-planned imposition, those able to unite and present consensus candidates.

According to Bola Atoyegbe, the chairmanship candidates were said to be handpicked to fund President Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid. This was reportedly a major criterion for their selection.

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Another key player in this political orchestration is Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa, Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, alongside Hon. James Abiodun Faleke, member of the House of Representatives.

Both allegedly claimed they had presidential backing to set up a political structure filled with their loyalists, conveniently planted over the purse strings of Lagos State’s local councils to fund the 2027 reelection bid of Mr President.

“This is a falsehood perpetrated in the name of the father of democrats and the leader of the progressives” says Abiodun Odusanya.

Olu Daniel writes in from Lagos