BusinessDay 20 Jul 2017

24 BUSINESS DAY C002D5556
POLITICS
Thursday 20 July 2017
Lagos council polls wobble on
back of legal tussle, uncertainties
NATHANIEL AKHIGBE
Candidates of about
twelve political parties
will on Saturday compete
for the positions
of chairmanship and
councillorship in the 20 Local Government
Areas (LGAs) and the 37
Local Council Development Areas
(LCDA) in Lagos State. According
to information available on the
Lagos State Independent Electoral
Commission (LASIEC)’s website,
the competing parties include Accord
Party (AP), Action Alliance
(AA), Alliance for Democracy (AD),
All Progressives Congress (APC),
People’s Democratic Party (PDP),
Labour Party (LP) and All Progressives
Grand Alliance (APGA).
Others are United Democratic
Party (UDP), United Progressive
Party (UPP), KOWA Party (KP),
National Action Council (NAC) and
People’s Democratic Movement
(PDM).
The journey to the exercise has
witnessed huge drama and the
level varied from one party to the
other. Expectedly, there have been
serious intrigues in the ruling party
in the state- the All Progressives
Congress (APC).
Given the wheeling and dealing
that have characterised the process,
some political pundits are not very
optimistic that the elections would
produce worthy outcome, with
many of the pundits seeing the possibility
of a deluge of legal tussles
after the exercise.
Those who hold this view point
to the protests and much talk about
alleged imposition of candidates in
some of the parties.
As if he envisaged what was to
happen during the acrimonious
All Progressives Congress (APC)
primaries at Teslim Balogun, Muiz
Banire (SAN), the APC national
legal adviser, in a letter addressed to
the State Chairman, Henry Ajomale,
warned that the process to select
flag bearers for the local government
elections in Lagos should not
be manipulated in favour of certain
candidates. He also opposed the
decision of the Lagos chapter of the
party to conduct primaries election
for all the aspirants in a centralised
location.
“As the custodian of the party
constitution, it is of utmost necessity
for me to say immediately that this
will not be in consonant with the
letter and the spirit of the constitution.
The (APC) constitution confers
the power to designate the venue of
such council primaries in the party
executive of the local government”,
Banire said, stressing that in other
states, local government primary
elections were never done in centralised
locations.
An Ikeja Lagos State High Court
presided over by Justice Doris Okuwobi,
had on July 7, held that no pri-
Muiz Banire
maries were held by the APC on May
27, 2017, in respect of Odi-Olowo
LCDA, in a suit filed by Hakeem
Abolaji Saka, against the APC and
LASIEC, and thus ruled that fresh
primary be conducted in the LCDA.
The Applicant had prayed the
Court, among other things to declare
null and void the said primaries
and to state that no primaries
were held on the said date, in respect
of the Odi-Olowo APC LCDA
chairmanship office for the forthcoming
election. As at last week,
names of many candidates for the
LCDA were said to still be missing
from the list.
In the suit, Saka prayed the
court to declare that: “Any primaries
held were contrary to Article
20(i), (ii), (iii) and (iv) of the Party’s
Constitution; the state chapter of
the party did not hold primaries as
there were no delegates. Names of
imposed candidates were drawn
up as returned with a view to sending
to LASIEC 2nd Defendant as
candidates of the party. Any list of
returned APC Candidates is null and
void as they did not emerge from
democratic primaries as provided
for by the party’s Constitution.”
The National Conscience Party
(NCP) also instituted a legal action
against the LASIEC, over legality of
requirements in the guidelines for
registration of candidates and rejection
of 77 party names submitted
to it for validation. The opposition
party described the developments
as “undemocratic and dangerous”
for the forthcoming LGA elections
in the state. All the candidates of
NCP were said to be missing on
the list.
Last week, apprehension so
took the better part of a number of
stakeholders from different political
parties that many of them rushed
to the secretariat of the LASIEC to
ascertain both validated and invalidated
candidates as released by the
commission.
I am not talking
about hurriedly
put together
enlightenment
session with its
attendant
anxiety; I am
talking about
long term planning
which gets
everybody ready
Earlier, Ayotunde Phillips, chairman
of LASIEC, had explained that
parties could still present substitutes
for the invalidated, who would
make the final list after meeting
eligibility criteria.
Taiwo Gbenga, Port Harcourtbased
political analyst, who is currently
holidaying in Lagos, posits
that if the allegation of imposition
of candidates levelled against the
ruling party is not resolved to the
satisfaction of all aggrieved members,
it may boomerang to hurt the
APC in the state ahead the 2019
general election.
“It just shows that political parties
in Nigeria are not ready yet for
internal democracy. A situation
where party leaders always want to
impose candidates on the party is
not healthy and it is largely responsible
for the kind of people we elect
into offices.
“Aspirants must be allowed to
test their popularity within the
party. If the processes that produce
aspirants are not credible it can only
result in the emergence of people
who will be loyal to those who
imposed them and not the electorates.
The controversy that trailed the
Lagos primaries is a statement that
we are not ready yet,” he said.
It also noted that the list containing
the names of validated candidates
for the posts had been pasted
on the notice board at the Yaba,
Lagos office of the commission for
the observation of candidates and
interested members of the public.
According to reports, while some
candidates had been validated,
others have the validation of their
candidacy pending, since they
could not present either evidence
of tax clearance, their Curriculum
Vitae or both for clearance, as they
were asked.
Some of the contentious requirements
for the guidelines include:
N50, 000 fees for chairmanship
form, resignation from jobs six
months before the elections, evidence
of three years tax clearance
and Lagos State Residents Identity
Card, among others.
Emeka Ejiogu, a Lagos-based
political analyst, said the controversy
and legal tussle that trailed
the polls show lack of preparedness
of the political parties, the state
electoral commission, candidates
and electorates as well, saying that
those are key issues to be focused
on, if lessons are to be learned from
it for future local government polls.
“You can see that candidates
themselves were not adequately
prepared for this election; otherwise,
how do you explain the
number of them yet to be duly validated?
The wise thing to do would
have been for the political parties
and the LASIEC to work together
in terms of educating both the candidates
and the voters about all the
requirements.
“I am not talking about hurriedly
put together enlightenment session
with its attendant anxiety; I am talking
about long term planning which
gets everybody ready. If everyone
has done the needful there would
not have been this high number of
candidates who are yet to be validated
few days before the elections.
This is not good enough,” he said.
He also noted that Lagosians’
interest in the local government
polls is very low, a problem he laid at
the doorstep of the media, which he
said did not do enough to inform the
people of the importance of the tier
of government closer to the people.
“Perhaps, Nigerians are not following
local government elections
because the state governors have
hijacked local government. That is
why we are calling for autonomous
of the local administration in Nigeria.
This is actually the government
that is closer to the people. If the
local government is given the place
it truly deserves development of
Nigeria will be very rapid.
“At the moment, it is state governors
that controls funds meant
for local government and decides
which project they want to embark
on in a given local government.
Some governors actually do projects
in local government controlled by
their party and neglect oppositioncontrolled
local governments. This
is part of the restructuring of Nigeria
that we are calling for,” he said.