No election took place in Lagos – NWC panel-crossfire

Chairman of the National Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Clement Ebri, invalidated the governorship primaries purported to have held across Lagos State, saying that it neither authorized nor conducted the governorship primary in Lagos.

Patrick Andrew recaptures the statement.

“We had a session with the representatives of both aspirants, they were here as early as 8am and at that meeting we discussed some of these modalities and asked them to furnish us with names of people who will act as party agents so that we could use for this exercise.

“So, we received from one party, a list about one hour ago, and at one point, they brought a list for seven local governments out of 20 and about five hours later, they brought list for 11, even the other two local governments have not been provided till this moment.

Do you blame me? Will you have expected us to collect 18 from one person and 20 from another person? “No.

this is all about fairness and equity, this is about integrity and I think that at the end of the day, what we did was the best.

I couldn’t have collected materials and say because the other party didn’t come, I give to the other person and say go and conduct the election,” he explained.

“There were a number of things we needed to adjust, fortunately we have concluded the preparatory process for the primaries and right here with me, are the list local governments and the agents and returning officers for the entire State.

“Because of the political tension in the State, we decided to be very careful, very methodical and very meticulous in doing it.

As party men, peace is very important to us than victory, we want victory that will be celebrated by both parties, we want victory that will be credible, a victory that will be in line with the guidelines and extant rules and laws in this country.

“We are ready to go to the field and execute this in clinical fashion so that at the end of the day we would not “Lagos is a flagship of APC and must continue to remain so for years to come and so in conducting anything that has to do with Lagos, “We have to do it with a lot of circumspection and objectivity and it should be a showpiece for the rest of the country.

“In the next few minutes, I would contact the National Headquarters and inform them that we are done with the preparatory process and for the timing of the release of the materials for this process,” Ebri said.

Displaying the result sheets, the Panel Chairman said it was “in impeccable condition and not one single sheet is missing and it is not possible for this Committee to do any other thing than it has been instructed to do”.

“We have guidelines and we will stead to those guidelines to be sure that we are fair to both parties.

So, the stage is set and election will hold anytime from now,” he said.

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