Agege Chairmanship aspirant, Hon Sola Osolana has appealed to Lagos State Chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC) to organise primary elections as the fortunes of the party in Agege will be affected in the upcoming Local Government elections if it fails to do the needful.
Osolana made this call on Wednesday while addressing the party supporters in Agege, Lagos.
The aspirant said every party member knew that there was no election across the seven wards in Agege; so the party should do the needful.
“It is evident that there was no election in Agege (last Saturday) and the incumbent chairman with his thugs destroyed the polls by bring another Local Government register to different wards in Agege.
“We have evidences of all that happened.We want the leadership of the party to come and get involved.If there is no primary election, it will affect fortunes of the party (APC) in the general election. All I wanted is well-conducted primary election and security for our people; and proper Ward register,” he said.
He enjoined all supporters to be calm and continue to support his candidature.
Recall that Suspected hoodlums (last Saturday) disrupted the All Progressives Congress (APC) Chairmanship and Councillors primary elections in all the seven wards of Agege Local Government Area of Lagos State.
Meanwhile, it was gathered that all the chairmanship aspirants except Ganiyu Egunjobi have berated the primaries. In separate interviews, they told journalists in Lagos that electorates were chased from pooling units and the whole process manipulated.
According to them, while some electorates were dispersed by hoodlums, other voters insisted on voting of which still later resulted to chaos.
Osolana said: “In spite of the zeal and aspirations of people at the early hours to cast their vote, the exercise was disrupted by hoodlums.
“There was no primary election in Agege; actually people came out early in the morning to cast their votes but were later scattered by some sponsored hoodlums.
“The exercise was also manipulated as wrong accreditation sheets were brought and the electorate could not find their numbers and names on the sheets.
“The activities of the hoodlums affected all the seven wards across the local government.”
According to Osolana, the accreditation sheets should have been sent to and pasted at the different polling units to ensure easy process of the election.
Osolana said the hoodlums touched all the wards in the council from A-G to ensure the election did not hold or was cancelled.
He said: “We appeal to the party leadership to shift the primaries to the State Secretariat of the APC, Acme in Lagos.
“It is very clear that some people want the genuine change but few want to disrupt the change thereby manipulating the progress of the party.”
Prince Abiodun Ogunji, Vice Chairman, Agege Local Government Area, who is also an aspirant, decried the activities of the hoodlums during the primary election.
“There was no election in Agege. We want the election to be rescheduled with thorough supervisions from the leaders,” Ogunji said.
Nurudeen Sofidiya, also an aspirant vying for chairmanship position, decried activities of the suspected thugs.
Sofidiya said: “It is obvious that some people don’t want progress in the local government.
“We saw one of the leaders who came in with thugs as they discovered that the election will not favour them.
“We appeal to the leaders of our party to save us and conduct another primary election for us at the State Secretariat ACME Lagos for proper exercise.
“We want the election at the neutral ground where there will be no manipulations or violence against the electorate.”
Another aspirant, Sesanfunmi Adegbite, said the primary election was manipulated as the name of electorate were not properly captured in the accreditation sheets.
Adegbite said: “As far as I am concerned, there was no election in ward E.
“People were chased away from the venue, while other electorate decided to stay to cast their vote which resulted to chaos and violence.”
Alhaji Ganiyu Egunjobi, the present Chairman of the council who is also an aspirant, when contacted on phone for his comments, said he would call back.
