Disagreement hits Lagos APC over voting pattern
There was sharp disagreement between members of the national monitoring committee of the APC and party stakeholders on the voting pattern to be adopted during the gubernatorial primary of the party in Lagos.
The gubernatorial primary in Lagos was postponed thrice, owing to lingering crises between Governor Akinwunmi Ambode who is seeking a second term ticket and his godfather, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who had endorsed the candidacy of Babajide SanwoOlu.
While Ambode’s supporters wanted all members with party identification slips allowed to participate in the primaries, Those supporting Sanwo-Olu insisted that only members with party identification cards should be allowed to vote.
The chairman of the monitoring committee, Clement Ebiri said both parties agreed on a the need to allow all members with identification cards and slips to vote.
But the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Tajudeen Obasa, who also participated in the meeting said the pattern being suggested by the monitoring committee differed from what they knew.
“We, as stakeholders insisted that since it has been agreed that it has to be direct primary, then people should be allowed to queue behind their preferred aspirant. We can’t talk about balloting at this time.
“We do not have resources to start training people on what they should lookout for at the polling stations. There is no way we can mix direct and indirect approach at the same time,” he said.
Similarly, the APC State Chairman, Tunde Rahman said the meeting went smoothly “except that the monitoring committee was saying something alien to what we know.”