Some aspirants and stakeholders under the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), in the upcoming local government election in Lagos State, have rejected the decision of the party to choose the indirect primary as the mode of determining flagbearers across the state.
Under the indirect primary, only party executives in each local government appointed by chairmen, some of who are also vying in the election, will determine the winner in the election.
However, a cross section of a chairmanship aspirants across the various local government areas and councils in Lagos State described the decision of the party to opt for indirect primary as an “aberration.”
Some of the aspirants who spoke on conditions of anonymity argued that the move imposed on aspirants does not provide a level playing field for everyone in the primaries slated to hold on May 10, 2025.
“What I will say is the issue of indirect primary actually means that we will use just the party excos for the primary election as against the direct primary which is for all the party members. The two options have their own problems.
With this indirect primary, the problem that we have now is that during the tenure of chairmen of local council development areas, they were the ones that apppointed almost all the excos for the party”, a chairmanship aspirant in Agege local government said.
Another aspirant, who is vying for the chairmanship.seat in Alimosho area, said,
“It is like an aberration. Ideally, everybody in that local government should be involved in nominating people. For example, this one was done like the winner takes it all. They decided that only the current excos, which may be the chairman, the house of assembly member, that will pick the excos.
“And if you look at the excos that were picked, some of them do not even stay in the neighbourhood, some of them are not core politicians, to the detriment of major leaders in various locations. They just decided to handpick. And you can imagine; if you have an exco, you have 27 excos and a particular group picks nothing less than about 20 or 25 excos. What s left?
“Considering the fact that, that particular group where the chairman belongs to and he wants to come back. Honestly, it is an aberration. It would be unfair to others. There would not be a level playing field for other people for two reasons. One: They chose the excos.The second reason is that you might have to talk to some delegates and we know that there are a lot of things that would exchange hands there.
“Unfortunately, the incumbent have control over the treasury of the local government. What is the guarantee that they will not empty the treasury to come back, even though they are not the favourable candidate that the people want?”
Also speaking, a top chairmanship aspirant in Ikosi/Isheri LCDA said it would be better for the APC leadership in Lagos State to adopt the consensus mode in selection of it’s standard bearers in the upcoming local government elections
He pointed out that, “consenus” mentioned in the Guideline for the election could be the option for aspirants in the current situation but insisted that it still does not provide a fair and equal chance in the process.
“In the guideline, there was something they mentioned. They said consensus. I think with the situation on ground, the issue of consensus will be the best alternative. That is a situation where you have indirect primary and the current chairmen have control over almost all of them and then they have control over the purse of the local government but the direct mode, where you have a lot of chaos and we know what they are trying to avoid is chaos but at the same time, you have not given the other contestants a level playing field,” he said.
Another chairmanship aspirant in Ikosi/Isheri pointed out that part of the injustice in the process for the election is that in his council, the current chairman, who he said has been in office for six years, is also running in the election.
“What they are actually calling for is that we discovered some of the chairmen have committed a lot of misbehaviour. Some of them are desperate to come back. In this kind of system, it will not allow the people to have a choice or some alternative because they have the excos and it is not like the people like them,” he stated.
“They believe that whether you have been sworn in twice and since you didn’t do a full term, you could still go a third term, which is wrong. The other issue is those who have done one term, they also want to come back. Some of them might not be good, some of them might not be wanted by the people, so in a situation where we now have to do direct primary, there is no way we can now hold those ones back.
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“In Ikosi/Isheri for example, the incumbent was sworn in by governor Sanwo-Olu twice. I don’t know how you can swear someone in three times.The second thing is that she had spent six years as a vice chairman, she has spent six years as a chairman and then you now want her to go for another four years as chairman, that will make a total of 10 years as chairman. It is not done. It is more than two terms. The maximum is eight years. So why should that one be accepted? And they are part of the people advocating for indirect primary because they have the control of the excos.”
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