Wale Jagun
The All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders in Lagos State have urged stakeholders across the 57 Local Council Areas to consider reaching consensus ahead of the primary elections slated for Saturday.
Party chieftains gave the charge at a parley with aspirants and party leaders across the 57 councils at the APC secretariat at ACME, Ikeja, on Wednesday.
Chieftains of the party including the Deputy Governor, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, Chairman, Governance Advisory Council (GAC), Prince Tajudeen Olusi, Chairman of the APC Electoral Committee, Mr Babatunde Ogala, SAN and state APC Chairman, Pastor Cornelius Ojelade, appealed to aspirants and their supporters to ensure peaceful conduct before and during the primaries.
The Lagos Deputy Governor, Dr. Hamzat, noted that consensus has been the tradition of the party, and adopting it would further strengthen the party in the state against the opposition.
Also speaking, Chairman of the Governor Advisory Council (GAC), Tajudeen Olusi, who emphasized the importance of the local government administration to the people, urged aspirants to support the party in its decision and called for consensus arrangement to maintain peace.
“The local government is the most important part of the government as it is closer to the people. It is important for us to cooperate with the party.
“It has become imperative for all of us to support and cooperate with the party. Five persons cannot occupy a single seat.
“We have in some places 12 aspirants contesting for a councillorship seat. We should take things easy, talk to ourselves and concede to one another.
“We should seek continuous peace and progress of the party. Conceding to one another is not new in our party. We should embrace it,” Olusi said.
Lagos State APC Chairman, Cornelius Ojelabi, urged all stakeholders to let the party come first before their ambitions or aspirations.
Chairman of the APC Electoral Committee, Mr Babatunde Ogala, SAN, urged party leaders to prevail on aspirants to accept consensus, emphasizing that all eyes would be on the conduct of the elections because President Bola Tinubu is from Lagos.
While appealing to the aspirants and other stakeholders not to let the President down, he urged that they should show good examples for other states to copy from and give Lagos the needed integrity
Ogala, who noted that the guidelines prescribed indirect primaries, adding that “,Consensus is a clearly recognisable democratic process just as the indirect primaries is a clearly recognisable process and direct primaries.”
According to him, the chairmanship primaries will hold at the state party secretariat for logistics reasons while councillorship will hold in various wards on Saturday.
He said that the 57 committees had been put in place to conduct councillorship primaries at the ward level, assuring that it will be fair and open.
The Electoral Chairman also said that only aspirants, with an agent each, would be allowed into the venue of election on Saturday, and urged aspirants to adhere strictly to the directive or risk being disqualified.
