The 22-man Governor’s Advisory Council, GAC of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Lagos State chapter, has announced that the party will be adopting the direct voting in Saturday’s Gubernatorial primary exercise in the state, saying there is no going back on earlier decision.
The council which is the highest decision making organ of the party, headed by the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, said the party was ready to give all aspirants a level playing field.
The aspirants are the incumbent Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode; former Lagos Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Babajide Sanwo-Olu and former Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat.
At a news conference on Monday in Lagos, on the official stance of GAC at the meeting, held last Saturday, Dr. Yomi Finnih, along with Prof. Tunde Samuel affirmed that the council unanimously, adopted direct primaries to pick APC candidates out of all the aspirants, including the gubernatorial.
Finnih, the spokesperson for the council, assured that all necessary machinery had been put in place to ensure a peaceful, free and fair exercise for all contenders without fair or favour to any particular person, saying that “it is notTinubu’s affair as been peddled around in the social media and some quarters.
“The GAC members at the last meeting held during the weekend, deliberated on how to conduct peacefully, the forthcoming party primaries. We decided to adopt direct primary elections to choose candidates as flag-bearer of the party in the 2019 general elections.
“The GAC has no preferred candidates among the Gubernatorial aspirants. It is not about Tinubu, it is a collective decision. We resolved to provide a level playing ground for the contenders without fair or favour. The adoption of the Direct Primary is to further democratise the election process in the party and do away with the usual belief of “anointed candidate(s). This will also ensure credible exercise. Every aspirants should go to the field and test their popularity, the people will decide,” he said.
Finnih added that the decision to adopt direct primaries was taken at an earlier stakeholders’ meeting held at the party Secretariat without any dissenting view(s), saying that the primary exercise would take place in 245 wards across the 57 councils in the state.
