18th January, 2017
The Publicity Secretary of the party, Taofik Gani who stated this during an interview, added that the catchment areas of the PDP in Lagos State were well outlined now and that the party was working hard to increase the catchment areas.
He took a swipe at the All Progressives Congress, APC, led government in the state for failing to conduct council elections at the expiration of the tenure of democratically elected council chairmen.
“The Lagos State PDP is well prepared for the council elections. We were expecting that local government elections would be conducted at the expiration of the democratically elected council chairmen but for whatever reasons, the former Governor Raji Fashola shied away from conducting the elections.
“But now, a new governor is there and we are insisting that new governments are democratically in place as stipulated by the constitution. We are indeed better fortified to win elections now, if the elections had been held, there would be no reason for us to challenge the government but now that we have won seats in the House of Assembly and House of Representatives, if any election is conducted now, the PDP is better positioned to win.
“Indeed, the catchment areas of the PDP in Lagos State are well outlined now and what we are doing now is to increase the catchment area. On our side, what we are doing is to increase those catchment areas, so we will implore the chairman of the Lagos State Independent National Electoral Commission, LASIEC, who was a former chief judge of Lagos and his members to put in place immediately the guidelines and date for the conduct of local government election. If they have obstacles put by the governor, they should let Lagosians know.
“Lagosians are not happy that up till now, they do not have democratically elected representatives at the council level, this is unfortunate. It is not only illegal, it is also immoral on any governor not to conduct elections. It is deliberate in Lagos State and the reason is because APC was shocked, we jolted them when we won the number of seats in the legislature.
“They never expected it. They are jittery that if they conduct local government elections, apart from the acrimony within the APC, the acceptance of the PDP at this point in time due to the irresponsible governance that we are getting from the Federal government led APC, they will meet their waterloo. That is why the conduct has been deliberately delayed,” he said.
-Jamiu Yisa