By Godwin OlaOluwa Oke
The political season is here again. The glitz of campaign poster, political schemes, strategies and moves that herald the APC primaries elections in Lagos has started. Like sun tzu said in the art of war, “only he who understands the crooked and the straight way conquers in a war”.
As party aspirants jostled for different political positions, Politicians, party excos, party leaders are the most sought-after bride at this moment.
Despite the short timeline and excessive cost of nomination forms, aspirants have raised their hard earned money to purchase the party forms. Some broke their piggy bank, some community contributions, some took loans and some are lucky to be political appointees.
The risk factor in all these schemes is the invincible hands that appears few hours to every party primaries in Lagos. This hand distort laid down procedures, prior agreements, consensus, or even popular contest to select a candidate, sometimes out of the blues. This invincible hand is blind to popular opinions or grassroots mobilisation in the choice of candidate. It doesn’t even consider the energy, time and cost that aspirants invested in the electioneering process. It is strictly based on loyalty, a blind one at that. At the end, the handpicked one is imposed as the party candidate.
As we approach these primary elections, we must remind ourselves the ugly experience of the last local government elections in Lagos. Candidates should emerge through a fair contest. However, if the invincible hand has to handpick, it should align towards market equilibrium, the candidates must emerge by the consensus of all party members.
God bless the APC Lagos.
God bless federal Republic of Nigeria.
Godwin OlaOluwa Oke, an economist and public analyst writes from Ikorodu.
