The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, has won the March 18 gubernatorial election.
According to the results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the early hours of March 20, Sanwo-Olu polled a total of 762,134 votes to emerge the winner of the contest.
The candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, polled 312,329 votes, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) standard bearer, Abdul-Azeez Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, scored 62,449 votes.
On February 25, Nigeria conducted its seventh general elections. In the presidential election, APC’s Bola Tinubu lost in the state to the presidential candidate of the LP, Peter Obi.
Being the first time the APC lost to an opposition party in Lagos State since 2015, doubts were raised about the possibility of re-election of Sanwo-Olu, the candidate of the APC.
However, the final results announced on Monday morning by INEC show that the incumbent governor polled the majority votes and met other constitutional requirements, and has been declared the winner of the exercise.
The results released by INEC show that Sanwo-Olu won in 19 LGAs in the state, while the candidate of the LP won in one LGA — Amuwo-Odofin. The candidate of the PDP did not win in any of the 20 LGAs in the state.
In Sanwo-Olu’s first term contest in 2019, he won with a wide margin in the state’s 20 LGAs. The 2019 guber election was mainly between APC and PDP.
Just like in the 2023 election, the PDP also did not win any of the LGAs in 2019.
In the two different elections, the changes in how the state voted in the presidential and gubernatorial elections are worth highlighting.
Recall that in the presidential election, Peter Obi of the LP defeated the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, in Lagos State, his political base.
Dataphyte’s analysis of the presidential election results showed that the candidate of the LP won in 10 LGAs in the state, while APC also grabbed 10.
This, however, changed during the governorship election.
The APC governorship candidate won overwhelmingly in 19 LGAs, polling at least 55 percent of the total votes cast in each of the LGAs except in Amuwo-Odofin, where he garnered only 31.76 percent of the votes cast.
The only local government area won by Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the LP governorship won, is Amuwo-Odofin. The party also won this LGA in the presidential election.
While Lagosians may have spoken as Sanwo-Olu said, several reports indicate that the election was heavily marred by voter suppression, ethnic discrimination, political thuggery, and physical attacks on voters, electoral staff, and security personnel alike.
For this reason, the candidate of the LP, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour has rejected the outcome of the election and has vowed to challenge the results of Saturday’s election in court.