2019 Titanic Battle: Lagos APC Adopts Sanwo-Olu As Guber Candidate
- Shuns Ebri-led NWC team
BY SEGUN ADEBAYO, ABUJA – The trouble brewing in the Lagos chapter of ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) took a new dimension Tuesday with the announcement of Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu as winner of the Party’s gubernatorial ticket and flag-bearer come 2019 general elections.
Already, this declaration has set the chapter on collision course with the Chief Clement Ebri-led National Working Committee (NWC) electoral panel that quashed the exercise that produced Sanwo-Olu.
The panel’s position may have been confirmed by the APC National leadership that has postponed indefinitely the governorship primary to douse tension generated within the party in Lagos State.
According to Ebri, the exercise would be rescheduled for another date by the NWC because the State chapter is not empowered by the Party’s constitution to conduct the governorship primary poll.
But announcing the gubernatorial primary results to newsmen in Ikeja, Lagos State APC Chairman, Alhaji Tunde Balogun, said Mr Sanwo-Olu polled 970,851 votes to dust Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, who managed a paltry 72,901 votes in the election.
He commended the party’s teeming members for turning out en masse to participate in the exercise, noting that their active participation clearly demonstrate their strong belief in democracy.
Balogun further stated thus; “I am aware that conflicting information has been circulating on our primary election, but I must tell you that the election was held and it was free and fair.
“It would be very painful to disenfranchise the over 1.5 million members who voted across the 245 wards in the state.”
On the heels of the electoral panel’s pronouncement that the primaries did not hold in Lagos, a stakeholders’ meeting had on Monday failed to reach a consensus on the pattern of the primary election.
