Ahead of the local government elections to be held in Lagos on Saturday, the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) has refused to screen political aspirants from opposition parties.
A source, who requested anonymity for fear of victimisation, told FIJ on Wednesday that the electoral body had deliberately stalled the screening of candidates who are not from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), in a bid to exclude them from the Local Government (LGA) and Local Council Development Area (LCDA) elections.
The source, an aspirant under the Labour Party (LP), said many opposition candidates were yet to undergo the final stage of verification, despite their names appearing in LASIEC’s initial list of candidates.
He explained that when they arrived at the LASIEC office on June 30, they were told their files were missing, despite a large number of LP candidates making it to the final verification stage.
“We have a good number of people from the Labour Party who are yet to go through the final stage of verification, even though their names appeared in the initial list published by LASIEC,” the aspiring councillor told FIJ.
“But when we went for the LASIEC screening on June 30, several LP members were told that their files could not be located at LASIEC.
“That’s a huge concern because their names were published at first, and now, during final verification, they’re being told their files can’t be found. I don’t understand how that could happen.”
After claiming the files were missing, LASIEC allegedly delayed the candidates for hours without an explanation.
He said that when the candidates began to protest, police officers were sent to disperse them.
“They screened only APC candidates till evening on that day, and then suddenly shut down without any word from them. They didn’t even address us to let us know what was next or the fate of the numerous people who were yet to be screened, from both the Labour Party and a few other parties. As a result, the candidates started protesting, and they sent the police to intervene in their usual way,” the aspirant narrated.
His claims were confirmed here, here and here. Some of the clips showed protesters chanting and singing in anger over the commission’s actions.
The following day, candidates who returned to the LASIEC office in Yaba were met with heavy police presence and barricades.
“The next day, the candidates went back to their office, hoping to be screened, but there were police barricades everywhere, like a war zone, and most of our people were not allowed into the LASIEC premises,” this witness told revealed.
With the elections just three days away, not being verified means some candidates may not appear on the ballot.
Meanwhile, LASIEC has denied stalling the screening of opposition candidates. It claimed that some aspirants made errors in their submissions and became unruly during the screening process.
“We realised that some of the candidates of the affected political parties by error of omission failed to tender all the required documents and were advised to take advantage of the open window scheduled for Tuesday, and Wednesday, July 1 and 2, 2025, upon the conclusion of the validation exercise on Monday, June 30, 2025,” it stated.
“However, these affected candidates came around on Monday while the exercise was ongoing for candidates of other political parties. They became impatient and, to our dismay, quickly mobilised into a huge over-zealous crowd which began to chant slogans, leading to the disruption of the peace and harmony of the commission.
“Furthermore, the protesters were subsequently addressed and informed that they could avail themselves of the open window opportunity. Pertinent to state that the disruption of the validation exercise by the protesting crowd resulted in the postponement of the exercise till the next day, Tuesday, July 1, 2025, for other political parties.”
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