2023: Lagos PDP demands cancellation of primaries

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State on Sunday demanded the cancellation of the House of Assembly and House of Representatives primaries in the state over alleged irregularities.

The PDP Chairman in Lagos, Philips Aivoji, made the call at a media briefing he addressed alongside other members of the party’s executives committee in the state, governorship aspirants and party leaders in Ikeja.

The PDP governorship aspirants at the briefing were Dr. Ade Dosunmu, Olanrewaju Jim- Kamal, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, and Adedeji Doherty.

He alleged the ad-hoc delegates’ list brought by the electoral committees for both primaries had been compromised.

There was apprehension at the venues of the primaries on Sunday as delegates and aspirants waited for election officers from PDP national headquarters to arrive at the centres.

Aivoji said: “The entire executive committee of Lagos State PDP and five of the six gubernatorial aspirants reject in its entirety, the ad-hoc delegates’ list brought by the electoral committee to Lagos State for the purpose of conducting the primaries.

“We are all shocked to see that the list does not reflect the authentic elected ad-hoc delegates as conducted by organs of the party at ward level and supervised by the Department of State Service (DSS) and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

READ ALSO:APC alleges PDP Lagos-East senatorial candidate forged WAEC result

“It is imperative to state that copies of the ad-hoc list that emanated from the state and submitted to INEC are completely different from the one brought by the committee for the purpose of the exercise.

“We realised that contrary to the provision of our great party and the electoral guidelines of the party, the election committee came to the state with list of venues and already chosen electoral officers.”

“Up till this moment, we cannot reach out to the committee chairman and secretary, their telephones have either been switched off or unreachable.

“As law-abiding members of our great party, we collectively reject this list and we cannot guarantee, free, fair and credible party primaries that we have sworn to conduct.

“The processes have been compromised ab initio and skewed.

“We, therefore, call for outright cancellation of the election.

“Doing otherwise will jeopardise the chances of the party in the 2023 elections.”

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