A fresh crisis has broken out in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos as the state working committee called on the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) to cancel the House of Assembly and House of Representatives primaries held on Sunday in Lagos.
Chairman of the party, Mr. Philips Aivoji, at a news conference held declared that the ad-hoc delegates” lists brought by the electoral committee for both primaries had been compromised.
He was joined at the briefing by other state executive members, governorship aspirants, including Engr. Adedeji Doherty, Dr. Ade Dosunmu, Mr. Jimi Jamal and Gbadebo Rhodes- Vivour (DACOVA).
According to Aivoji, should the primaries to elect candidates to represent the party for State House of Assembly and House of Representatives polls in the 2023 elections be allowed to go on, it would lead to a plethora of endless litigations afterwards.
The Chairman said: “The entire State Executive Committee of the Lagos State PDP and five of the six Gubernatorial aspirants, reject in its entirety the Ad-Hoc delegates list brought by the electoral committee to Lagos State for the purpose of conducting the State House of Assembly and House of Representative elections in Lagos State.
“We are all shocked to see that the list does not reflect the authentic elected Ad-Hoc delegates as conducted by the organs of the party at Ward level and Supervised by the DSS and INEC.
“It is imperative to state that copies of the Ad-Hoc list that emanated from the state and submitted to INEC is completely different from the one brought by the committee for the purpose of the exercise.
“We realised that contrary to the provision of our great party and the electoral guidelines of the party, the election committee came to the state with list of venues and already chosen electoral officers,” Aivoji stated.
Aivoji insisted that the approach adopted by the electoral committee is totally unacceptable, saying the state executive was not carried along.
This was just as he disclosed that the Committee Chairman and the Secretary of the Electoral Committee meant to conduct the State House of Assembly Primary election had not reported to the State Chairman or State Organ of the party.
“Up till this moment, we cannot reach out to the committee chairman and secretary, their telephones have either been switched off or unreachable.
“As law abiding members of our great party, we collectively reject this list and we cannot guarantee, free, fair and credible party primaries that we have sworn to conduct. The processes have been compromised ab initio and skewed to favor a particular aspirant.
“We, therefore, call for outright cancellation of the election exercise, doing otherwise would not only jeopardise the chances of the party at the polls,” the Chairman added.
Aivoji maintained that the process that threw up the authentic delegates list was done in disobedience to the constitution of the party, saying as all relevant stakeholders were not consulted and carried along.
However findings by Daily Trust showed that the rejection is part of the crisis that has rocked the party since the inauguration of the executive led by Aivoji.
A source said the electoral committee sent to the State for the Reps and Assembly primaries recognised the group aligned with the former Deputy National Chairman, Chief Olabode George.
A member of the George’s camp who spoke with our correspondent on the condition of anonymity while reacting to the rejection of the primaries by the executive described them as “unserious.”
He disclosed that the LG chairmen would brief the media later today on the outcome of the primaries.
