Wale Jagun & Mariam Akinloye
-As party registration starts tomorrow across 330 polling units in Ikorodu
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ikorodu Local Government has charged stakeholders within the party to cooperate amongst themselves to ensure that the national registration exercise, which commences tomorrow, Tuesday, February 9, 2021, for members of the party, is a success.
They also charged Registration Officers (RO) in the 330 polling units across the council to ensure that members are properly guided while filling the membership forms and ensure that forms allocated are properly utilized.
Supervisors in charge of the exercise and other party stakeholders gave the charge at a meeting held at the Ikorodu Local Government Secretariat hall on Monday (today).
Hon. Taiwo Orenuga, the Supervisor for Ikorodu Constituency II for the All Progressives Congress (APC) membership registration in Ikorodu and former Executive Secretary, Igbogbo/Bayeku Local Council Development Area, urged party officials and members to cooperate with Registration Officers (RO).
He also charged them to support the party by canvassing people to join the party.
He also enjoined the Registration Officers to make wise use of the registration materials and conduct the exercise in such way that will not tarnish the image of Ikorodu.
Hon. Azeez Jimoh Olosugbo, the Supervisor for the exercise in Ikorodu Constituency and former Council Leader, Ikorodu Local Government, also appealed to supervisor to work in partnership with party leaders and other stakeholders to make the exercise a success.
He also warned against registering fake members or those that are not willing so as to prevent cancellation.
He charged party men to focus their drive on trade associations, unions, CDAs, and other groups that have benefited from the party and canvass them to register.
APC Chairman, Ikorodu Local Government Area, Alhaji Taiwo Longe, called for cooperation among groups in the interest of the party and charged the ROs to ensure that registration is properly handled.
“Nobody should prevent anyone from registering. Lagos is known for excellence and as a result, we should be able to register more members for the party.
“There will be Registration Officers in various polling units and the bulk of the work falls on them.
“We will have three ROs per Unit and we enjoin the supervisors to ensure that the forms are not filled with small letters or blue biro.
“It is important that those registering are properly guided so that they don’t waste forms. Any wasted form is minus to the number of people that we can register “.
He also warned that the ROs should not make photocopies of any part of the forms, adding that original forms with the duplicates should be issued to party members.
“There are 330 polling units in Ikorodu and you can imagine the number of officials that are going to be on the ground starting from tomorrow. We are going to be having 990 officials that will be attending to those that want to register from tomorrow.
“The adoption of polling units for the exercise is to make it easier for people to join our party.
“We must see the impact of this on the number of people that we will be registering by cooperating with one another”.
Longe also announced that there are other officials that will be doing monitoring of all the registration points.
He also charged council Chairmen, Councilors, LGA Chairmen and others to take charge of mobilisation of people for the registration exercise.
The party chairman also charged ward chairmen to conduct stakeholders’ meetings in their respective wards to carry others along and prevent any protest.
“We should allow the exercise to be free and fair,”, Longe said.
A party chieftain, Alhaji Musliu Animashaun, said that the exercise is important for Ikorodu to prove its membership strength.
“This is an important exercise and we must do membership drive.
“This is one of the ways that Ikorodu can show its strength as a key APC stronghold in Lagos State.
“We must work towards showing that members of the party in Ikorodu are more than other 19 local governments in Lagos state.
Hon. Adeola Banjo, the Ikorodu North LCDA Chairman, who extended Gov. Babajide Sanwo -Olu’s greeting to the party leaders and people, also added that the governor said that there should be no fight during the exercise and that the exercise should be an avenue to show the party strength in the state.
According to him, Gov. Sanwo – Olu said that: “The purpose of the party registration is ego bragging.
“It is an opportunity to show that our party has strength and they will come handy when there is any election”, he added.
He also appealed that those incharge of the exercise should allow everybody to register.
Hon. Banjo also announced that the Chairman Advisory Committee in Ikorodu North LCDA has contributed money to make cameras available at every polling unit to take passport photographs free of charge for those that do not have.
Hon. Nurudeen Alimi, the Council Leader, Igbogbo/Bayeku LCDA, assured that councilors will work with the council Chairmen to ensure that more people are registered for the APC.
