Lagosians have been assured that the All Progressives Congress (APC) will only present popular and acceptable candidates for elective positions, particularly the party’s governorship slot in the 2015 general elections.
Senate Minority Whip and one of the leaders of the party, Senator Ganiyu Solomon, who is also vying for the governorship seat in the race to succeed Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola in 2015, gave the assurance at a media interaction in Lagos yesterday.
The senator, popularly known in political circle in Lagos as GOS, noted that the leadership of the party had assured of free and fair primaries in which all party members could participate to enable popular and acceptable candidates emerge.
Solomon has been a key player in Lagos politics since the inception of current democratic dispensation. Respected as a grassroots politician and mass mobiliser, he was a former chairman of Mushin Local Government before being elected a member of the House of Representatives after, which he has been twice elected a senator to represent Lagos West in the upper chamber of the National Assembly.
He said though the national leadership of the party had last week, mooted the idea of a modified direct primaries, “but without pre-empting them,” he said he was optimistic that the party would hold an all-inclusive primaries where all stakeholders would participate.
“The statement credited to our publicity secretary that we are going to have modified direct primaries is strange to me. I have heard direct and indirect primaries before. He said there would not be delegates. But I want to say that we should wait for the party, so that we can know how we are going to have the modified direct primaries,” he said.
The senator further noted that APC had held governorship primaries in Anambra, Ekiti and Osun states and, “all the aspirants were made to go through direct primaries, including where there were no other aspirants other than the incumbent governors,” adding: “We should not give room for speculations or read meanings to good intentions of our leaders.”
On whether somebody had been anointed as the APC governorship candidate for 2015 in Lagos, Solomon declared: “There was a pronouncement by our leaders, who sounded it emphatically that nobody has been anointed.”
With the level of education, enlightenment and exposure of Lagosians, who want to participate in the process of who becomes their representatives, it portends a great danger if we dare talk of imposition in this age and time and we must not take them (voters) for granted.”

2015: No imposition of candidates in Lagos APC – GOS