The Labour Party (LP) has rejected the planned involvement of the Chairman of the Lagos State Parks Management Committee, Musiliu Akinsanya, popularly known as MC Oluomo in the distribution of sensitive and non-sensitive materials within Lagos State in the February 25 and March 11 polls.
The party also tasked the new police commissioner in Lagos, Idowu Owohunwa to check the activities of the Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)in Lagos, Olusegun Agbaje and disallow any form of electoral “subversion”.
The Director-General of LP Presidential Campaign Council, Akin Osuntokun, said INEC should do all it can to ensure that persons with loyal ties with a party are not included in the distribution of election materials.
“Justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done,” Osuntokun said on The 2023 Verdict, Channels Television’s special election programme on Tuesday.
The LP campaign boss spoke about a day after a Federal High Court in Lagos granted an injunction that barred INEC from engaging or further dealing with MC Oluomo or any of his representatives in the distribution of election materials and adhoc staff for the forthcoming polls in the state.
“This kind of thing baffles me that somebody like MC Oluomo, with all the negative associations with one of the presidential candidates, and it (INEC) sees nothing in going ahead in engaging essentially to distribute ballot papers. It defies logic that anybody will think that nothing is wrong with that.”
Osuntokun also knocked Agbaje for supporting the engagement of MC Oluomo for the distribution of election materials across the 20 local government areas of the state.
“It is like having a cat to guard a rat. I wonder the logic in that,” the LP campaign boss stated. “If you want people to have confidence in your election, you do everything possible to make all the arrangements as open and as non-discriminatory as possible.”
Osuntokun said the change of the police commissioner in Lagos is a consolation and he called on the new police boss in the state to check any form of excesses by the INEC REC.
He said with Owohunwa’s appointment as new police commissioner, “whatever Mr Agbaje is preparing to do to subvert the election can be effectively checked and that gives us some form of hope.”
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had set up the parks committee headed by MC Oluomo after suspending the operations of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in Lagos.