Clement Ebri, chairman of the
primary election panel of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos state,
has declared Babajide Sanwo-Olu as winner of the exercise in the state.
Ebri made the declaration at a
press conference in Lagos on Wednesday morning.
He had earlier distanced the
committee from the election, opposing the open ballot system used.
Ebri said arrangements were in
place to commence fresh elections where the secret ballot would be used.
But Tunde Balogun, chairman of
the APC in Lagos, disagreed with Ebri, saying the election went on peacefully
across the state.
Balogun subsequently declared
Sanwo-Olu winner of the exercise, announcing that he polled 970,851 votes while
Ambode secured 72,901 votes.
At his media briefing on
Wednesday, Ebri reeled out the same figures.
The NWC panel’s initial position
had sparked confusion among members of the ruling party and residents of the
state.
Ebri had said the need for equity
and fairness made his panel to reject the primary.
“First and foremost, yesterday
(Monday) we held a stakeholders meeting; certain submissions were made and on
the basis of these submissions, I contacted the national headquarters and they
asked us to adjust the procedures in line with the provisions,” he had said.
“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 agents for this exercise.
“So, we received the list from
one party about one hour ago. 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
(4pm). 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 and I think 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.”
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