Suspected hoodlums on Saturday disrupted the All Progressives Congress (APC) Chairmanship and Councillorship primary elections in all the seven wards of Agege Local Government Area of Lagos State.
Some aspirants vying for the chairmanship position in the LGA said in Lagos that electorate were chased from pooling units and the whole process manipulated.
According to them, while some electorate were dispersed by hoodlums, other voters insisted on voting of which still later resulted to chaos.
Mr Sola Osolana, a Chairmanship Aspirant, said: “In spite of the zeal and aspirations of people at the early hours to cast their vote, the exercise was disrupted by hoodlums.
“There was no primary election in Agege; actually people came out early in the morning to cast their votes but were later scattered by some sponsored hoodlums.
“The exercise was also manipulated as wrong accreditation sheets were brought and the electorate could not find their numbers and names on the sheets. The activities of the hoodlums affected all the seven wards across the local government,’’ he said.
According to him, the accreditation sheets should have been sent to and pasted at the different polling units to ensure easy process of the election. Osolana said the hoodlums touched all the wards in the council from A-G to ensure the election did not hold or was cancelled.
“We appeal to the party leadership to shift the primaries to the State Secretariat of the APC, Acme in Lagos. It is very clear that some people want the genuine change but few want to disrupt the change thereby manipulating the progress of the party,” he said.
Prince Abiodun Ogunji, Vice Chairman, Agege Local Government, who is also an aspirant, decried the activities of the hoodlums during the primary election.
“There was no election in Agege. We want the election to be rescheduled with thorough supervisions from the leaders,” he said.
Mr Olubukola Sofidiya, also an aspirant vying for chairmanship position, decried activities of the suspected thugs. “It is obvious that some people don’t want progress in the local government.
“We saw one of the leaders who came in with thugs as they discovered that the election will not favour them. We appeal to the leaders of our party to save us and conduct another primary election for us at the State Secretariat ACME Lagos for proper exercise.
“We want the election at the neutral ground where there will be no manipulations or violence against the electorate,” he said.
Another aspirant, Mr Sesanfunmi Adegbite, said the primary election was manipulated as the names of electorate were not properly captured in the accreditation sheets.
“As far as I am concerned, there was no election in ward E. “People were chased away from the venue while other electorate decided to stay to cast their vote which resulted to chaos and violence,” Adegbite added.
Alhaji Ganiyu Egunjobi, the present Chairman of the council who is also an aspirant, when contacted on phone for his comments, said he would call back. He said he was in a meeting.
