PDP wins bye-election in Lagos

The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the Ikorodu Constituency II Bye-election, Olugbenga Akinwale Oshin, won the election with a total vote of 3,438, which was 416 votes higher than the total vote of the Action Congress of Nigeria's candidate, Olusayo David Alagbe.

The constituency sit became vacant on November 2 when the occupier, ACN's Rotimi Sotomiwa died. The Independent National Electoral Commission's returning officer, Kenneth Obianyi, after collating all the votes announced Mr. Oshin, whose occupation is farming, as the winner.

"Having scored the highest votes, I hereby declare Olugbenga Akinwale Oshin as the winner of the bye-election of Ikorodu Constituency II," Mr. Obianyi said, after reeling out the total votes polled by each of the 14 candidates in the election.

New wave

The PDP supporters, on hearing the result, went into jubilation, especially because it was not certain who would emerge the winner of the election.

When counting started around 3pm, the results announced from Igbogbo wards tipped ACN's candidate slightly ahead of other contestants and jubilation started from their camp. However, results from Imota, Ibeshe, and Ijede drained every hope in the ACN's camp and jubilation shifted to the PDP camp. More results had the two camps using calculators and making frantic calls.

The ACN supporters who then knew they had lost hardly bothered to return to the INEC's office to hear the official result.

Free, fair, but...

The election was peaceful in almost all the polling units. Only one case of ballot box snatching was reported in Ginti Village and the result was cancelled.

However, at Methodist Primary School and Adeboruwa Bus Stop units which NEXT monitored, voters were induced with money by supporters allegedly working for the PDP's candidate. Voters who spoke to NEXT on the condition of anonymity said each vote cast earned them N1,000.

At about 1.20pm ACN supporters alerted the security agencies that a woman, identified as Mrs. Ogunmuyiwa, had several voters card on her. A search by the security personnel revealed two voters' card, one of which the alleged said belonged to her tenant.

Mr Ogunmuyiwa was let go after voting has closed and ACN's lawmaker, representing Ikorodu I, Sanai Agunbiade, refused to make a case out of it.

Ikorodu's salvation

Kazeem Adeagbo, a PDP supporter who spoke to NEXT after the announcement of the result, said the victory signals "Ikorodu's salvation."

"ACN is not popular in Ikorodu. They have no structure here and all they do is make noise. Now, we are beginning to save ourselves and the salvation will be completed in the next general election," he said.

Another supporter, who identified himself as Johnson, said, "Now Goodluck [Jonathan] will know that PDP is still very strong in Lagos."

"We are surprised," said Femi Maribade, an ACN's supporter, who attributed his party's loss to "over confidence." "Up till about four days ago, there was no noise from the PDP camp and we thought we will win easily," he said.

Source: 234next.com