Thursday, June 15, 2017

LAGOS COUNCIL POLL | PDP Announces Alliance With Labour Party

The Moshood Salvador-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party in Lagos State has announced an alliance with the Labour Party for the July 22 council polls.

Salvador, who belongs to the Ahmed Makarfi faction of the PDP, made the announcement at a news conference in Lagos on Wednesday.

He said that the alliance was a temporary arrangement and that all PDP candidates for the polls would contest on the LP platform.

Salvador said that the decision was borne of out the inability of his faction and the Segun Adewale-led faction of the PDP to reach a consensus for the polls.

He said that the alliance became necessary as his faction, which he claimed represented over 90 percent of the PDP in the state, was denied participation in the polls, following the recognition of the Adewale-led faction by the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission.

Salvador said that the alliance did not mean that his faction had left the PDP. According to him, the arrangement would be temporary.

“What we are announcing today is an alliance with the Labour Party to enable our candidates to participate in the elections.

“Political alliance is an agreement for co-operation between political parties on common agenda, often for the purpose of contesting elections.

“This alliance does not mean we are leaving the party. We are PDP anytime.

“We only have a pre-election alliance. This is not the first time we are having such in the country’s political history,’’ he said.

Salvador appealed to PDP lovers and sympathisers in the state to vote for PDP-LP alliance through LP.

“Again, it is alliance. We have not defected to another party; we have not declared for another party and we have not dumped the PDP,” he said.

He said that the alliance had made the Labour Party platform to have 342 councillorship candidates and 52 chairmanship candidates for the polls.

Salvador directed all candidates under the arrangement to start pasting their posters and educate the electorate on the alliance and how they could vote.

He directed all the faction’s PDP executives in council areas to work closely with candidates of the LP for success at the polls.

The Appeal Court ruled that Sheriff is the PDP party’s National Chairman.

Markarfi’s appeal against the judgment is pending at the Supreme Court.

LASIEC has fixed July 22 for the council polls, and July 29 for the run-off.

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