By Ola ‘Kiya, Reporting
POPULAR Nigerian musician and actor, Folarin Falana, otherwise known as Falz, says the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu was not elected, but selected himself.
The singer made the mockery in a response to an appreciation tweet by the re-elected governor, who was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) amid allegations of voter suppression, maiming and killing during the Saturday March 18 exercise.
Stonix News reports that Prof. Adenike Oladiji, Vice-Chancellor, Federal University of Technology (FUTA), Akure, who’s the Returning Officer, announced the winner on Monday in Lagos.
She said that Sanwo-Olu polled a total of 762, 134 votes to defeat his closest rival of the Labour Party, Mr Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, who scored 312, 329 votes.
Oladiji said that the PDP candidate, Dr Abdul-Azeez Adediran garnered 62,449 votes to come a distant third in the election.
She disclosed that votes garnered by other political parties in the contest were: A (800), AA (904), AAC(627), ADC (6,078), ADP(2833), APM (884), APP (259), BP (616),NNPP (1,583), NRM (340), SDP (1,746), YPP (461) and ZLP (1,635).
Oladiji put the total number of registered voters at 7,060,195; total accredited voters at 1,182620; total vote cast at 1,173,631, total valid vote at 1, 155, 678 and rejected votes at 17,953.
Oladiji said: “I declare that Sanwo-Olu Babajide Olusola of APC, having satisfied the requirements of the law by scoring 25 per cent in two-third of the local government areas in the state and also scoring the highest number of vote cast is hereby declared the winner and he is returned elected.”
The returning officer invited party agents available to sign the results of the poll, but agents of the LP and PDP were not present to sign the results.
APC won in 19 Local Government Areas of the state, the LP won in one LGA, while the PDP did not win any.
In his remark, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr Olusegun Agbaje, noted that some of the allegations of manipulation leveled against him were fallacy.
Agbaje, however, said that such allegations were not strange in a clime like Nigeria’s and decried the poor turn out of voters.
Assessing the process, Mr Olusegun Mobolaji, Lagos state Chairman, Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) decried the pockets of violence experienced in some parts of the state as well as vote buying and apathy.
He urged the candidates to imbibe the spirit of sportsmanship and accept the outcome of the elections in good faith.
Mobolaji urged INEC to improve on the shortcomings in the future elections.
Earlier, before leaving the collation centre, Pastor Dayo Ekong, Lagos State Chairman of LP and party’s State Collation Agent, called for the cancellation of the elections.
Accusing Agbaje of disappointing the youth, Ekong decried high level of violence, attacks, ballot boxes snatching, disruption, disenfranchisement as well as killing in some cases that characterised the exercise.
