The Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) has written to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seeking guidance on how to proceed with the Labour Party (LP) primaries ahead of the July 12 local government elections in the state.
LASIEC Chairman, Justice Ayotunde Phillips (retd.), disclosed this on Thursday during a stakeholders’ forum held in Ikeja. She revealed that the commission had received separate invitations from three factions within the Labour Party, each requesting LASIEC to monitor its primary election.
“Today they (the LP) invited us, unfortunately, it’s just a faction of the Labour Party that invited us,” she said. “On our records, we have three factions with different sets of names, and because of that, we had to forward a letter to INEC for advice, and we are awaiting that.”
She stressed that without INEC’s directive, LASIEC could not engage any of the factions.
“We have three sections of the Labour Party. We have now written to INEC to advise us on what faction we should interact with. Because of that, we did not attend the primaries of that sect of the LP, because we cannot entertain three sections of a party. That’s why we were not there today,” she added.
Despite the leadership tussle, Justice Phillips confirmed that the Labour Party had declared its intention to take part in the council polls.
“The LP party will participate. They have shown their intention to participate. What I just stated was to explain one of the reasons we were not at their primaries,” she noted.
She also announced that a total of 19 registered political parties would be fielding candidates in the local government elections.
“We have 19 registered parties (participating in the LG elections),” she said.
Justice Phillips further confirmed that LASIEC would observe the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), both of which are scheduled for Saturday.
“The PDP, we have their letter indicating that their primary is on Saturday, as well as the SDP. By God’s grace, we will attend, only as observers,” she said.
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