It’s official: Sanwo-Olu is Lagos APC governorship flag-bearer

BY DAMOLA EMMANUEL

Babajide Sanwo-Olu will fly the flag of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in next year’s gubernatorial poll in Lagos State. It has been officially announced.

After initial hiccups, the Clement Ebri electoral panel appointed by APC’s National Working Committee of the APC to supervise the process, on Wednesday, declared Sanwo-Olu, winner of the party’s Lagos State governorship primary.

Sanwo-Olu clinched the ticket by scoring 970,851 votes to beat the incumbent Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, who got 72,901 votes.

The head of the APC electoral panel appointed to conduct the Lagos governorship primary has reversed his stance and declared Babajide Sanwo-Olu winner of the primary.

The Clement Ebri panel had created an uneasy suspense, Tuesday evening, when he declared that his committee was unaware of any primary held in Lagos.

But at a crowded press conference, Wednesday morning, Ebri affirmed the result announced by the Lagos Chairman of the APC, Tunde Balogun in favour of Sanwo-Olu.

Ebri said despite the hiccups observed in Tuesday’s primaries,  the Lagos State governorship primaries committee actually collated the results of the 245 wards in the 20 local government areas from the collating officers.

“At the end of the exercise,” he declared, “the following votes were scored by the respective aspirants: one, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode 72,901 votes. The other aspirant, Babajide Sanwo-olu, scored 970,851 votes.

“Following this results, I, Clement Ebri, the chairman of the Lagos State APC Governorship Primary Committee, hereby declare Babajide Sanwo-olu the winner of that election.”

However, Ebri did not explain why his panel capitulated after maintaining on Tuesday that no election was held as far as his committee was concerned.

Wednesday’s declaration of Sanwo-Olu as the standard bearer of Lagos APC in next year’s governorship election ended a rancorous process that the electoral umpire distancing himself from the conduct of the primaries, using Option A4.

Thousands of party faithful, including APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had thronged the various polling units in the state’s 20 local governments and 37 councils to elect the party’s flag-bearer at the 2019 gubernatorial vote.

But as the day wore and results came pouring in, indicating a landslide victory for Sanwo-Olu, Ebri threw in the dampener, and separated his panel from the process. He said the vote could not have held as he was still expecting the aspirants to submit the list of their representatives in all the wards to his committee.

“Anything that was done without the list we waited for, I can’t wait for a list for over nine hours and I didn’t see anything and you expect me to go ahead,” he had said Tuesday afternoon. “We had a meeting with the representatives of the aspirants as early as 8 a.m. and we told them to bring lists of representatives from each LG to monitor the election on their behalf. I got names for 20 LG reps from one side and only got seven from the other side and we just got additional eleven LG from them.

“And you don’t expect us to go on with an election where one person is represented and the other is not. I believe what we have decided is the best. There was no election and we will communicate when materials for the election will be distributed and election conducted.”

Regardless of Ebri’s protest, Tunde Balogun, Lagos State APC chairman, announced the results of the primaries later that night and declared Sanwo-Olu winner.