By Yunus Yusuf/Augusta Uchedinor
Mr Olaibi Blaize, Head, APC Electoral Committee, Somolu Constituency 1, Lagos State, on Friday ordered arrest of the chairman of the party in the constituency for alleged unlawful distribution of primary election materials.
APC held House of Assembly and House of Representatives primaries across the 40 Lagos State constituencies and 24 federal constituencies in the state.
Correspondents of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), who covered the elections, report that Blaize also cancelled the party’s primary election in the constituency.
Yomi Olubamido, APC Chairman in the constituency, was consequently arrested for alleged unlawful distribution of delegates’ tags and accreditation materials.
Blaize, who addressing delegates, said: “I cannot conduct the elections under this atmosphere because the materials meant for the elections were cited with some delegates.
” I was told from the APC Secretariat in ACME that the election materials have been sent to the local government, but when I got here, l asked Olubamido about the materials and he denied receiving anything from the state secretariat.
” I was surprised when l saw the delegates’ tags and other election metarials with party members and delegates.
” On this note, l decided to cancel the process here and l told a police officer to arrest Olubamido for illegal possession of election materials.”
Blaize said that the process had been compromised.
He said that the tags and other election materials ought to have been strictly kept in the hands of electoral officers and not party members or delegates.
Reacting, the Chairman of Somolu Local Government, Mr Abdul-Ahmed Salawu, told NAN that he was disappointed at the alleged action of Olubamido.
He alleged: “We have a sole aspirant for House of Representatives and 11 aspirants for House of Assembly, and some materials were given to Olubamido since yesterday for the elections but he refused hand them over.
” He was supposed to hand over all the materials to me, but he went ahead to distribute them himself and when the electoral officer came, l was asked about the materials and I said l was not aware of any.
” When l called him to explain about the materials, he could not explain.”
NAN reports that as at 10:15 p.m., APC members were still moving around the venue in the hope that the elections would still hold.
Somolu Constituency 1 has 30 ad-hoc delegates drawn from six wards. (NAN)
