The road to Alausa Governor’s Office Lagos 2019 turned into a maze Tuesday, October 2 as news of a landslide victory by Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the anointed candidate of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, national leader of the All Progressive Congress, conflicted with an indictment of the purported primaries by the Election Committee sent in from Abuja and a denial of the suspension by yet another official of the party.
Seemingly innocuous, the announcement by the Lagos State Election Monitoring Committee, representing the National office of the All Progressives Congress, points to the introduction of other parties into the dispute in Lagos.
Clement Ebri, chairman of the seven-member NWC panel who addressed a press conference at about 4:10pm at Protea Hotel, Alausa, Ikeja, said materials meant for the conduct of the election as released to them by the national secretariat of the APC had only just been distributed, and wondered how an election could have been conducted without the involvement of the panel.
Ebri, who described Lagos as the flagship of the APC, said the panel would do everything to ensure a free and fair primaries which outcome will be acceptable to all parties involved because the process would have been seen to be to above board.
According to Ebri, a former governor of Cross River State; “We are in touch with the national secretariat. We’re ready to give you a credible election.” He added the panel could not carry out the primaries on Tuesday morning as planned because one of the parties involved failed to submit list of voters to the panel.
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Ebri spoke further: “Due to the political tension in the state, we have decided to be very careful and methodical with the process. As party men, peace is more important to us than victory.
“We are interested in the process that will be celebrated by both parties. And that is what we have done. We are ready to go to the field and execute this. We aim to do it in a clinical version because Lagos is very important to us and it is the flagship for the party.”
“In the next few minutes I will contact the national headquarters and inform them that we are done with the preparatory process. It takes a lot of work for the main show to take place. We are ready to give the state the most credible election. We will contact the national headquarters on the timing for the release of materials. It is not our fault that this exercise took this long. In some states, primary were moved to Thursday.”
“We were waiting for the state party chairman to provide certain information that will enable us post people to the wards. We have two aspirants and we needed to be fair to both parties. The information we demanded for came in about an hour ago. And we had to struggle this period to balance the equation.”
Ebri said there were five persons from the local organising committee and four for each ward, adding “they will all go out to ensure the primary is conducted. We all understand the terrain in the state especially as it concerns the traffic situation. So, the materials are available now and ready for deployment.”
He further stated that the “national secretariat advised us to use ballot papers and we came into Lagos with thousands of them. But during the stakeholders meeting, it became obvious that the state chapter of the party wasn’t ready for such primary. They claimed that there was time to educate the members and others. And based on the submission made at the stakeholders meeting, some changes were made.”
“And we were advised to conduct the open ballot in a manner that would be objective to all parties. And that is one of the adjustment we made to accommodate views of the stakeholders. For us, the stage is set and the primary should commence any moment from now.”
The panel chairman said the group has had a section with representatives of both aspirants at about 8 am yesterday during which it requested them to bring names of their representatives that would be used for the exercise. But the names didn’t arrive early from both parties.
However, the Lagos Chapter of the APC insisted that the Lagos state primaries have already been conducted.
“Our members were visible in Lagos. For example, our national leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was at Ikeja, his own ward” Tunde Balogun, the party chairman said.
“He took part in the election and we saw the results. The results have been signed by the agents of the two aspirants. Those results were credible because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were there and they all signed off. We were all witnesses to the conduct of the election. There were no violence, no chaos, it was free, fair and transparent. That’s what I am saying,” said Balogun while addressing journalists in Ikeja.
On whether he was satisfied, he said: “I am surely for the fact that the conduct of the election were seamless, free, no chaos, no violence and people conducted themselves well.
However, some of Ambode’s supporters described the exercise as a charade, as they were intimidated, beaten, chased away and prevented from voting across the state.
One of them, Oluwabunmi Adebola, from Ward J, Somolu, said “They did not allow anybody supporting Ambode to vote. They brought in thugs, guns and chased us away,” she said.
All indications are that the APC gubernatorial primaries to select the flagbearer for next year’s election has become a ding-dong affair.
The heart of the matter is the conflict between Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and the national leader of the APC Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a former Governor of the state. Tinubu asked Ambode to step down while instructing party faithful to support Babajide Sanwo-Olu, current Managing Director of the Lagos State Property Development Corporation (LSDPC). Ambode declined and insisted he would rather face the direct primaries the party had declared it would conduct.
It seemed at first like a straightforward fight between a godfather and his recalcitrant godson. The party lords of Lagos declared that Ambode was no longer suitable. Tinubu, known as the Lion of Bourdillon, further asked the Governor to step down from the contest so the party could have a consensus candidate in Sanwo-Olu.
The two leaders attended meetings at Abuja as part of efforts by the party leadership at national levels to broker peace. Indications were that the party hierarchy outside of Lagos felt that Ambode deserved a second term ticket based on his performance in office. Until the breakdown in relationships, Ambode was the poster boy of good performance for the APC.
On Sunday, September 30, Ambode risked it all. He declared that he would not step down but would readily contest the primaries as the party instructed in Lagos. On the same day, Tinubu then wrote an open letter to the party faithful where he declared Babajide Sanwo-Olu as the chosen candidate of the party.
Both leaders went again to Abuja for meetings. In Lagos, Sanwo-Olu appeared at a photo session with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and his team went to town to declare that the VP had endorsed his candidature. Not so, other reports indicated, clarifying that it was just a photo session featuring both men who had served as Commissioners under Governor Bola Tinubu.
The primaries supposedly held Monday, October 2, following two postponements. It was not clear at press time Tuesday where the pendulum would rest as it kept swinging between primaries held and primaries cancelled for a fresh one.
Many factors are at play in the political disputation in Lagos State. Cancellation of the primary for a fresh one by the National Working Committee of APC would imply disapproval of the current actions of the Lagos overlord by the leaders in Abuja. Abuja is emerging as the inspiration for the courage of Ambode in resisting the instructions of the political godfather of Lagos. It has become a game with very costly consequences for both Ambode and Tinubu no matter who wins.
Joshua Bassey
