Lagos All Progressives Congress opts for direct primary for 2019 elections

The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has affirmed the decision of the party to use direct primary for next year’s elections in the state.

He said members would use their membership card or slip based on the party register to vote in the direct primary.

Tinubu, who spoke at a special stakeholders’ meeting at the party’s secretariat in Agidingbi yesterday, said the party would soon commence registration of new members throughout the state.

The party’s national leader, who commended the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, for his prompt intervention on national issues, berated former President Olusegun Obasanjo for unnecessarily criticising President Muhammadu Buhari.

However, the Lagos State Chapter of the Action Democratic Party (ADP) has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to review its process of registration and collection of the Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs).

The party, in a statement issued yesterday by the state’s Publicity Secretary, Adelaja Adeoye, decried the slow pace of registration, distribution and time-wasting process of issuing PVCs to Lagosians.

It asked INEC to revert back to the former system where registration and collection of PVCs are done at various polling units.

Besides, the party, however, appealed to the electoral body to extend the closing date of registration and collection of PVCs, stating that the August 17, 2018 closure will shut the door at millions of potential voters who genuinely desire to register.

In another development, a presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Attahiru Bafarawa, has warned delegates for the party’s national convention to shun cash and carry line of voting that would sway them to vote in favour of the highest bidders.

Bafarawa, who spoke yesterday at the PDP’s secretariat in Lokoja when he visited to seek members’ support for his presidential bid, asked them to avoid the temptation of making money their focus.