By A serious crisis has engulfed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State after some aspirants for the State House of Assembly tickets accused the party’s leadership of imposition of preferred candidates.
According to the said aspirants, the leadership of the Lagos PDP submitted a falsified list of candidates for all the 40 seats in the Lagos State House of Assembly to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ahead of the 2023 elections.
An aspirant, Akogun-Abudu Akinlola Olumayowa who contested for the PDP ticket in Ojo Constituency 1 alleged that the final result released by the party was fraudulent, as no primary election was held in the area.
“This won’t slide. I won’t take this injustice in silence. We must put an end to this daylight manipulated and open fraud. I’m pursuing this under the purview of the party constitution, and the ambit of the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said.
The aspirant claimed the tale is similar across the 20 local government areas in Lagos, alleging that the Philips Avioji-led Lagos PDP imposed anointed candidates as the party’s flagbearers despite the failed primaries.
Our correspondent obtained the results for the PDP State House of Assembly primaries in Lagos which were reportedly submitted to INEC.
Checks on the document show that each result carries the names of Hon. Jeffrey Owor as electoral officer and Rt. Hon. David Idoko as returning officer, respectively — fueling concerns about the authenticity of the results.
However, the imposition of candidates, according to sources within the Lagos PDP, is said to be the orders of the Lead Visioner of the Lagos4Lagos Movement, Dr Abdul Azeez Olajide Adediran popularly known as Jandor.
Adediran, who defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC), is the PDP flagbearer for the 2023 gubernatorial elections in Lagos.
It was said that Jandor solely decided on the list to favour his own allies, particularly members of his Lagos4Lagos camp. BlackBox Nigeria, however, cannot independently verify this claim at the time of filing this report.
It would be recalled that controversy had trailed the PDP State House of Assembly and House of Assembly primaries in Lagos over alleged manipulation of the delegates list.
On June 5, two PDP aspirants for Lagos Assembly had affirmed that there was no primary held in the state on May 22, and called on the party’s National Working Committee to conduct a fresh exercise.
