APC’s Voodoo Governorship Primary in Lagos
The APC National Working Committee’s panel sent to conduct the Lagos governorship primary danced naked in public on Wednesday. It was a dance of shame by the Clement Ebri-led panel. 24-hours earlier, Ebri, a former governor of Cross River State, had on national television declared the voodoo Lagos governorship primary conducted on that day by the Lagos APC chieftains as a charade and subsequently cancelled the exercise.
I can clearly remember Ebri saying that the preparatory process for the election had just been concluded and that his panel was shocked to hear that the primary had been concluded.
He remarked on Tuesday: “The preparatory process had just been concluded for the primary. The primary is to begin anytime soon. There was no election today. Election materials are being sorted. The stage is set and election begins anytime from now. We have guidelines and we will stick to the guidelines.
“Because of the political tension in the state, we decided to be very careful, very methodical. As party men, peace is more important to us than victory. We want a kind of victory that will be celebrated by both parties.
“We want an election that will be credible and in line with the guidelines, the extant rules and the laws of the country. And that is what we have done. We are ready to go to the field and execute this, so that at the end of the day, we will not be accused of partisanship. Lagos is very important to us and it is a flagship of the APC.
“We have two aspirants and we need 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. Now that we are ready, we will contact the national headquarters on the situation and the right time will be announced. 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 was not ready for such primary.”
That was Ebri speaking on Tuesday. I thought a transparent primary election would take place the following day. But Ebri made a world record reversal on Wednesday and accepted the result of an election he said was a travesty. In fact, he collected and signed it, declaring Jide Sanwoolu winner of the fraudulent primary.
I have never seen this kind of a thing before in my life. It was a travesty of justice. So, what changed within 23 hours? Very simple: The Ebri panel got instruction from Abuja to accept and sign the manufactured result. The primary was simply skewed to favour Sanwoolu. My dear Ebri at his level could not resist these shenanigans. A man that had earlier distanced his panel from the charade was seen signing the jaundiced result. In fact, it was Tunde Balogun, chairman of the APC in Lagos State that declared Sanwoolu winner, when Ebri initially refused to do so. This same Ebri suddenly forgot about the equity and fairness he talked about on Tuesday and openly backed the farce. What a disgrace.
So, this is the “change” APC promised Nigerians? A party that promised change is seen promoting a world record farce. It was a brazen disrespect for Justice and equity. The truth that must be told is that there was no governorship primary election on Tuesday. The result submitted was brazenly concocted to knock out Akinwunmi Ambode. It was a mockery of democracy. Lagosians know what to do in 2019.