LAISEC: Validation of Candidates or Disenfranchisement?

Lagosians will recall that the African Action Congress has challenged all the processes and planning towards the 2025 local government elections, from how the electoral law was passed in a clandestine manner to the appointment of the LASIEC Chairman and her team, to the administrative fee, and the introduction of guidelines without notifying party leaders. LASIEC has reacted to some of our concerns without providing solutions and has remained silent on others. However, we have refused to let this discourage us from participating in the election process, because we believe that all these actions are engineered by Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s government to allow a free passage for candidates in his political party.

On June 24th, we received a letter from LASIEC for validation and verification of candidates’ documents, scheduled for Thursday, June 26th. Prior to this, we had submitted all documents to LASIEC, but nevertheless, we instructed our candidates to come with the original documents. However, LASIEC, without any prior instruction in the letter, suddenly pasted guidelines on Thursday morning when candidates arrived, which included asking them to bring a photocopy of the sponsor’s voter’s card. They refused to apologize for this omission on their part, which most party chairmen stated was not even necessary.

Candidates left the LASIEC office late at night, only to arrive again today and face another baseless challenge. By 8 pm on Monday night, candidates from our political party and other parties were still at the LASIEC office with no verification done. Now, information has it that the APC successfully completed their verification exercise over the weekend. They were given two complete days, and we didn’t hear of any challenges. Is LASIEC working for the APC or for all political parties in Lagos?

Despite paying an administrative fee for a job they are paid with taxpayers’ money to do, they still gave us an administrative nightmare in handling our candidates. The APC is getting a smooth validation exercise while other parties, who are supposed to be busy campaigning, are spending a whole day at LASIEC. We believe this is intentional and a method to frustrate our candidates out of the election process, and that will not happen.

We call on the Chairman of LASIEC, Justice Bola Okikiolu Ighile, and other members of her team – Samson Ajibade, Akin Durojaiye, Olumide Metilelu, Abeeb Dapo, and Oladele Adekanye – if they still have integrity, as they claim, to quickly sit up and solve this disgraceful administrative problem. Failure to do so will attract an immediate shutdown of activities in the LASIEC office until it is resolved.

Candidates who are supposed to be collating their polling unit agents for an election that is barely 12 days away are busy spending the whole day at the LASIEC office. Is this the creativity, dedication, and deep sense of duty that Babajide Sanwo-Olu promised Lagosians would get from LASIEC when he appointed this team at the Banquet Hall in Ikeja? If LASIEC can’t conduct a simple verification and validation exercise, how can they conduct free, fair, and credible elections? Justice Bola Okikiolu Ighile should stop joking with us. This has become a joke taken too far.

Signed: Ayoyinka Oni, Chairman, Lagos AAC.”