Kunle Adelabu
The former State Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and leader of the party in Ikorodu Division, Primate Charles Odugbesi, has called for a peaceful conduct of party’s primary election tomorrow.
Members of the ruling party will, on Saturday, May 29, 2021, vote to elect the party’s Chairmanship and Councillorship candidates across the 20 Local Governments and 37 Local Council Development Areas in the state
The exercise has, however, generated so much tension even before it is conducted.
Ikorodu, which has a local government and four LCDAs, is also experiencing tension as some incumbent chairmen and other aspirants that want to take their seats have been accused of planning to cause troubles during the primary election.
However, Primate Odugbesi, in an interview with some journalists in his Ikorodu home, appealed to members of the party to see themselves as members of same party engaging in a sporting activities and not war.
“I want to sue for peace with our people in Ikorodu North LCDA, Ikorodu Division and Lagos State in general, that they should go to the venue of the primary election peacefully”, he said.
“We do not need to wage way amongst ourselves and everybody must see this as in-house sporting activities that we must do peacefully.
“It’s like a sport, if you practice very well, you will win the race and if you don’t win now, you go back to practice to win another time.
“We should not see ourselves as rivals but healthy competitors.
“We don’t need to wage war and more so, we should allow people to come out to vote peacefully”, he appealed.
He assured all the aspirants and party members that the party leadership has put in place necessary arrangements to ensure that the process go peacefully and their votes counts.
“The process will be open secret ballot. People should be slow to go in peacefully to cast vote for person of their choice”, he said
“You can go back home once you cast your vote because your vote will count and if you want to wait, do that patiently and peacefully.
“The party leadership has put machinery in place to ensure that everything go smoothly.
“We don’t want war but peace in our party. A situation where they are vandalizing party’s vehicles should be discouraged because it is causing fear in our people and this could result in apathy.
“I am appealing to everybody that they should go about their voting tomorrow peacefully.
“After voting, the ballot papers will be counted and some will be announced at the centres while others will be at the collation centre”, he explained.
“We must remember that we are still coming back together after the primary election tomorrow to work together for the local government election”.
Primate Odugbesi reminded APC members that they still need to work together after the primary against other parties and that they need not create problem with one another within the party.
“If we should kill or maim ourselves at the primary, how do we face other parties in the coming election?”, Primate Odugbesi asked rhetorically.
Speaking on the rumoured alignment between some chairmanship aspirants, the former APC State Secretary said that the idea is welcome to reduce tension.
“Alignment and collaboration have been part of politics for long time. Where you have three or more people vying for a particular position, it has been our tradition to call ourselves together to mediate and ask them to give peace a chance because the seat is only meant for one person at a time”, he said.
“We have seen people coming together to seek for electorate’s votes through alignment.
“If that is happening here, they must give it a chance.
“We hope that the alignment works so that the tension would be minimized.
“It’s better for us to settle at home than going out to fight”, Primate Odugbesi advised.
