2015: No zoning, we shall select best guber candidate

BY DAPO AKINREFON LAGOS—LAGOS State chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Mr. Henry Ajomale, has said the party has no intention of zoning the governorship seat in 2015, but it would select the best candidate to be the party’s flagbearer.
In an interview with Vanguard, Mr. Ajomale said the party did not believe in zoning political offices, saying, “For us, it is not a question of zoning; it is a question of getting the best material anywhere we can get it, not minding the zone. We want the best and only the best is good for Lagos.
“We want someone who will improve on the achieve-ments so far. I don’t believe in zoning, I believe we must get the best material that can carry on with the legacies that has been established by the two giants (Tinubu and Fashola).
“The legacies they are leaving behind must be improved upon and not getting someone who will spoil it by zoning. We must get the best hand from anywhere in Lagos State.”
While refuting claims that the party does not practise internal democracy, he said, “in our case, two systems are allowed. You can conduct your primaries by consensus and you can do open primaries. In some cases, when you do open primaries, you still have maiming and death trailing the way because of our people who want to win at all cost.
“Can we afford to lose the lives of our members because we want to conduct elections?
“It also has a cultural innovation that you allow the people in each community to decide who will be their representative. It is allowed by law. So, that is the most internal democracy that I think we are practising, allowing the people to choose who they want.
“They know themselves in that area. Which one is the best form of democracy, the one you allow the people to choose their representatives or the one hijacked by the money-bags? Which one is most important? The system will use the two methods but many people will not know.”
He noted that in choosing its candidate, the party intended to adopt certain methods that would help leaders select the best.
According to him, “to us, that is the best form of internal democracy that I understand where you allow the people in the community to decide who represents them and not money-bags that throw their weight around, who will not be answerable to the community.
….Demands electronic voting in Nigeria
BY CHARLES KUMOLU
LAGOS — The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has said it is time for the Intdependent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to introduce electronic voting in the country to ensure the integrity of its elections.
ACN said that the introduction of electronic voting would enable Nigerians take over the elections instead of the judiciary which now determins winners of elections.
National Publicity Secretary of the ACN,  Alhaji Lai Mohammed made this known in a  statement in Lagos yesterday.
According to Mohammed, ‘’with electronic voting, the overall cost of elections will be far less; there will be stability in  the polity, the atmosphere of war usually associated with elections will disappear and the involvement of the security agencies will be de-emphasised.’’
The statement read, ‘’Though Section 52 (2) of the Electoral Act bans the use of electronic voting for the time being, the National Assembly should move quickly to amend that part of the law, while the Federal Government should provide INEC with all the resources needed to make electronic voting a reality.
‘’We assure INEC of our full support towards using electronic voting in 2015. We also appeal to all other political parties, Civil Society Organisations and indeed all Nigerians to join us in pushing for a system that will eliminate the role of thugs and sideline vote thieves during our elections, in addition to making our elections free, fair and credible.
The party added that even Ghana,   did not wait for troubles associated with electoral malfeasance  to break out before embracing electronic voting during its last general elections in December.