Abdurrazaq Balogun, Action Alliance candidate in Lagos in the March 18 governorship election, says INEC’s inability to take a position in the party’s national leadership crisis and court cases led to the party’s poor outing.

In a statement on Wednesday, Mr Balogun described several disputes in the party ahead of the poll as a case of confusion and lack of direction.

“We also saw that INEC kept handling these conflicting court judgments with a high level of ambiguous disposition,” he said. “It (INEC) failed to come to the public to address its position on the party’s leadership tussle and why it has taken the stand it took.”

He said INEC was confused and did not know the position it would publicly take about the disputes in the party.

“The party was polarised, and different instructions kept coming from the court-recognised leadership and INEC-recognised leadership of the party,” Mr Balogun added.

According to the governorship candidate, this discouraged party loyalists.

“The election was to be boycotted based on the instruction emanating from one of the two factions of the leadership and the second faction publicly adopting a candidate from another political party,” he stated.

Mr Balogun said he was baffled by INEC’s inability to publicly make its position known despite many court injunctions. He said the injunctions went viral in the media and gave INEC direct instructions.

He emphasised the need for party leaders to ensure INEC made its position known to help Action Alliance perform better in future elections.

Mr Balogun said INEC’s role in strengthening democracy and party politics should be guaranteed, saying the commission must not be seen as endangering the democratic tenets.

According to him, the issue of multiple court cases and how to best handle them needs rapt attention from all stakeholders.

(NAN)