LG poll primary: APC group threatens defection, demands sacking of exco

Lagos4Lagos, a pro-APC organisation, has vowed to leave the party unless the current caretaker committee, led by Alhaji Babatunde Balogun, is disbanded.

Dr Abdul-Azeez Adediran, the group’s Lead Visioner, made the threat on Sunday while speaking to members of the group in Ikeja, saying the committee had failed to deliver on its promise of holding free and fair primaries for the local government election.

While N2m was paid for nomination forms, Adediran expressed unhappiness that many of those who paid were disenfranchised, saying that it was time for Lagos to determine who would govern.

He said, “We want the caretaker committee in Lagos dissolved. We are passing a vote of no confidence in the Lagos APC leadership. These people collected our money without giving us our choices.

“If they refuse to do the needful, we will move. How do you reconcile the fact that you ask your own members to pay a huge sum to get nomination forms? Some of our members (Lagos4Lagos) have been disenfranchised.

“This (Lagos APC caretaker) committee should be dissolved; we don’t need a party that depends solely on one person.”

Reacting, the Caretaker Committee Chairman of the state APC, Alhaji Babatunde Balogun, told The PUNCH on the telephone that the party in the state conducted credible council primaries.

Balogun said, “There is no basis for some of these allegations they are making. The people in Abuja know that we had very good primary elections. The APC is very popular in Lagos; the party controls about 85 per cent voters in Lagos.

“So, you will expect conflict. People want to get there because they know that a win at the primaries is as good as winning the election. That is why there was anxiety and so on there. We followed the LASIEC guidelines; we had security in place.

“We don’t want to lose any member; that is why I am calling on them to try and see reason and come to the fold.”