By Reuben Omotayo Hopo In the twilight to the conduct of primary election to determine the flagbearers among the present chairmanship and c...
By Reuben Omotayo Hopo
In the twilight to the conduct of primary election to determine the flagbearers among the present chairmanship and councillorship aspirants who obtained the APC nomination forms at the State's secretariat of the party in ACME road, Ikeja, the leadership of the party in the State has taken an unprecedented step that would leave a lasting legacy on the emergence of who become the next LG Chairman and Councillor in the entire 20 Local Governments and 37 Local Council Development Areas across the State in the build-up to the forthcoming general election announced by the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) scheduled for Saturday, 12th July, 2025.
This turn of events is very impressive, and the leadership equally deserves to be specially commended for arriving at the milestone with the hindsight of its experience over the years. This bold move is not just a radical approach, but a renewed commitment to build a virile political culture and ethos necessary to maintain party cohesion and discipline as a ruling political party on its stalwarts without segregation, fear or favour by ensuring that, its guidelines for holding the much anticipated primary that is barely seventy-two hours is error-proofed, and placed no one at any advantage against others.
Applying the uncommon wisdom and being well-guided by its shared experience so far has left many political watchers and aspirants themselves in awe, as no one is yet to see the great APC replicating a structure similar to the moribund National Democratic Institute (NDI) established by the People's Democratic Party (PDP) national executive committee in Abuja, in its sixteen years of holding sway to power at the Federal level. Indeed, the party's remarkable demonstration of the resilience of Lagos in achieving uncommon feats in complex situations is just another colourful feather added to the State of the "Centre of Excellence."
Having taken the bull by the horns, the leadership has shown that it is worthy of its reputation and is ever ready to nurture and safeguard the name of the party, APC, and strengthen grassroots democracy and governance across the entire Councils, going by its press release of Thursday, 8th May, 2025. The release, which states the guiding principles about how every candidate would emerge on or before Saturday, 10th May, 2025, is the last strategy to contain a seemingly over-bloated crisis that may go out of hand, this Saturday.
Earlier, the party guidelines published in the national dailies had mentioned that direct primary would be used to choose the candidate among those who obtained the nomination forms. Apart from this, the leadership also directed its LGA Chairman in each of the LGAs/LCDAs to call a meeting of all the aspirants and appeal to their conscience on its behalf to be wary of obtaining the nomination forms. It also attached certain conditions to talk sense into the minds of each of these aspirants to beware beforehand that the purchase of the forms would not be in place of patronage. The cost is also non-refundable. Despite all the entreaties, those who could afford the millions of naira and others with strong sponsors went ahead to obtain the forms. Little do we all know that the leadership was meant to be heeded to avoid taking a prepared battle into the courts of intending aspirants.
Now that the leadership has come up with a new formula called "indirect primaries" made up of a 15 -man electoral committee from among the LGA officers of the party, the lesson to be learned by the present and future aspirants of the party is an aged-long saying that, "The wisdom of King Solomon cannot be compared with the age of Methuselah" is deep, and "enough words for the wise." Given the benchmark, Lagos APC is now a Pace-Setter in party primaries.
However, at past eleven o'clock of midnight on Thursday, updated guidelines for the APC Chairmanship election, indicating "withdrawal and refunds," were circulated by a fellow on a group platform. If this is anything true, those who wish to withdraw before they are hit by "No Vote" from the result of the indirect primary should count themselves so lucky.
Reuben Omotayo Hopo, a Journalist & Associate of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, is a Public Affairs Commentator and Brand Strategist.
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