Delegates and agent from Eti-Osa local government at Saturday May 10, 2025 Primary of the All progressives congress (APC) in Lagos State have staged a protest to the party’s secretariat to seek redress over an alleged injustice cited in the process.
The teaming supporters of a widely acclaimed popular aspirant Mr Wasiu Yekini Babatunde, who is jostling for the chairmanship position ahead of the July 12 council poll in Eti Osa local government, boldly declared that they voted for none other than him and would love to have their mandate restored.
The protesting party faithful wielding placards with various inscriptions boldly written on it, are of the view that some infractions were committed against the process which clearly faults the rolled out guidelines of the party, while pleading for justice to be done in favour their preferred personality.
The placards reads: “Our party APC credibility is at stake”, “Hon. Ogala SAN your integrity is at stake don’t destroy your image”,“Wasiu Yekini Babatunde is our mandate, he is the one Eti-Osa want, we don’t want any baba Sope”.
“APC Eti Osa what is our legacy-serving you all through”,”Give us our Stolen mandate in Eti-Osa Local Government”, “Eti-Osa call for true and fair election”, “Wasiu Yekini is a grassroot politician in Eti Osa”.
According to the leader of the protesting members Mallam Jida Saheed, the attempt to subvert the popular will of the people will not go down well as it may boomerang for the party.
“We are coming out to voice our grievances because we are loyal and committed to the party members and will not want anybody to destroy the image of our party and of course our father the President Bola Tinubu.
“The way they going about mentioning his name, obviously it is going to tarnish the image of our party and we don’t want that to happen.
“At the end of the day the party belongs to everyone of us,do you want to tell me that if my father is not a leader or my mother is not a leader or I am not a son to a leader I don’t have the right to contest and win?
“Of course people are ready to join our party but with this kind of manipulation that happened during the primary do you think people will join? Of course they won’t.”
Corroborating the stance of the protesters Madam Paulinah hinted that no other candidate had the kind of appeal of Wasiu Yekini in Eti-Osa local governments.
She called on the party leadership to help restored the mandate of the people as it will not do well.
Citing infractions observed during the process Mallam Jidah Saheed hinted that the guidelines of the party for the primary were flouted as agents and delegates rights were clearly breached.
“In every election process where the ballot boxes are kept and the delegates come to vote, of course it is well known that each aspirant will have his representative there to monitor his vote but that was not the case that day.”
“Out of 26 delegates, we were told that it is only 24 delegates that voted and at the end of the day an aspirant got 22 two other aspirants got one vote each,unfortunately our leading aspirant, the most popular aspirant in Eti Osa local government Wasiu Yekini Babatunde got the highest vote and they said he got zero.
“The process was open everybody saw it,we are still loyal to the leadership of the party and we believe all the infractions will be addressed but if they feel that they have done it and nothing will happen to it, like our people say we left them with almighty God.
Jida opined that they are loyal party members and will do all they can to support the President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, stressing that they still trust the party to do the needful.
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