Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Lagos APC group seeks national body’s intervention in crisis

By Kehinde Olatunji
13 August 2021   |   4:05 am
The Lagos4Lagos movement, a group in Lagos State All Progressives Congress (APC), has petitioned the party’s national body to stop imposition, which has characterised the state’s branch.

The Lagos4Lagos movement, a group in Lagos State All Progressives Congress (APC), has petitioned the party’s national body to stop imposition, which has characterised the state’s branch. The group wants the party to ensure internal democracy.

The group maintained that if there were no internal primaries and democracy within the party, there would be no level playing ground when the general elections come, saying every issue must be addressed.

A former Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and Chairperson, Lagos4Lagos, Adenrele Adeniran-Ogunsanya, who stated this on Wednesday at a press conference, noted that card-carrying members must be respected and carried along on issues happening in the party.

She lamented the situation where members were made to pay for forms when the party knew that it was going for consensus candidates during the ward congress, and no refund was made to affected members since then.

“The consensus was deliberate, they wanted people they could manoeuvre and manipulate. But at least the Constitution should be followed. They should make room for fairness and justice in the party.

“Politics is a game of numbers, let there be an open field, where fairness is played. People bought forms, and after paying, there was no election. Anything that we do that falls within the ambit of the law is not anti-party. Does the constitution allow that you have people pay for forms and you don’t give them? They are doing things that are not constitutional and as long as we are on the side of the law, we are good to go.

“We are saying that there is a need for members of the party to test their popularity and let residents of Lagos be the ones to decide who they want to serve them, not one person sitting somewhere and saying everyone should go a certain way. That is all we are asking for. Is that anti-party?

“We are asking for internal democracy, we are expecting that as the ruling party and as a party that has been in government for 21 years, the least that you will do to members is to allow internal democracy. Let there be fairness and let everybody have a level playing-ground. We are not saying our will should be done.

“If we have about 2.5 million APC members registered, we are saying that you should allow us as members of the party to come out and choose those that will represent us at the local level. So, we don’t need anybody imposing executives on us, let’s choose those that will represent us,” she said.

RELATEDLY, the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL) has implored Nigerians not to keep quiet when those in government are failing to perform their duties and fulfilling electoral promises.

CACOL’s Chairman, Debo Adeniran, said this, yesterday, during a consultative meeting with the theme, “Prioritising anti-corruption and accountability issues during the 2023 general elections in Lagos State, organised by the Centre in collaboration with Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) for Governance, Accountability, Transparency Education (C-Gate) delegates from Ikeja Division in Lagos.

Adeniran, who stated that it is important to make political leaders be alive to their responsibility, said if political leaders failed to engage them in the governance process, they must go to them and ask critical questions about the programmes and projects, especially at the local council level.

0 Comments