Mr Olaibi Blaize, Head of the APC Electoral Committee in Somolu Constituency 1, Lagos State, ordered the arrest of the party’s chairman in the constituency on Friday for alleged unlawful distribution of primary election materials.
The APC held primaries for the House of Assembly and House of Representatives in all 40 Lagos State constituencies and 24 federal constituencies in the state.
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 also canceled the party’s primary election in the constituency.
As a result, Yomi Olubamido, the APC Chairman in the constituency, was arrested for allegedly illegally distributing delegates’ tags and accreditation materials.
Blaize claimed that the process had been jeopardized.
He claimed that the tags and other election materials should have been restricted to electoral officers and not party members or delegates.
Mr Abdul-Ahmed Salawu, Chairman of Somolu Local Government, told journalists that he was disappointed by Olubamido’s alleged action.
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.”
