Daily Independent (Lagos)
27 April 2011
Babatunde Fashola won by a legitimate tsunami. And that did not surprise many when the result was announced on Wednesday.
The previous day, motor cycle taxi operators had joined petty traders, and artisans, as well as middle class folks, who came out in droves from the comfort of their air conditioned homes to queue in the sun under umbrellas to vote for the Governor of Nigeria’s most plural state.
He was handed the reins of power for another four years. Fashola, a member of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), carried the Centre of Excellence with 1,509,113 votes, an appreciation by the residents for his upgrade of transport, health, education, security, and other social structures.
He beat Adewole Dosunmu (Peoples Democratic Party, PDP) (300,450), and other ACN candidates won all the 40 state Assembly and three rescheduled House of Representatives seats.
Kwara, a landlocked, poor, agrarian state, remains in the grip of the 40-year Olusola Saraki dynasty – despite the split in the family – with the election of Abdulfatah Ahmed (PDP), whom Governor Bukola Saraki (PDP) chose as his successor over his sister, Gbemisola (Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, ACPN).
Olusola Saraki backed Gbemisola in the election.
The PDP retained its patch too in other states in the South East, South South, and the North, but lost Nasarawa.
Elsewhere, in Oyo, in Ogun, political dynasties were uprooted in the Governorship and state Assembly ballot, and the South West returned wholesale to its diet of opposition to federal politics by totally rejecting the PDP, “the Abuja people.”
In the National Assembly (NASS) vote on April 9, the PDP won only one Senatorial seat in the South West (Oyo North), but this changed on April 16 when the electorate in the zone went for President Goodluck Jonathan (who even grabbed Lagos by 1.28 million votes), with a caveat that they voted for Jonathan as a person, “not the PDP.”
The voters kept their word, as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced on Wednesday that ACN candidates cleared the South West.
Besides, Chris Ngige (ACN) finally triumphed in the rancorous race between him and Dora Akunyili of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) for Anambra Central Senatorial District.
Ngige won the rerun with 69,765 votes, wrestling the seat from Annie Okonkwo, who carried it in 2007 on the platform of the PDP but later defected to Accord Party (AP). Akunyili polled 69,292.
ACN candidates also won the three Senate seats in Ekiti.
In Oyo, Isiaka Ajimobi (ACN), beat Adebayo Alao-Akala (PDP), the incumbent Governor who was hand picked in 2007 by Lamidi Adedibu, the man who dominated Ibadan politics for decades until his demise two years ago at the age of 80.
Adedibu had also rail-roaded Rashidi Ladoja into Government House in 2003. But even Adedibu’s son, Kamorudeen, lost his Senate seat on April 9.
Voters in Ogun also highlighted the decline of dynasty in the South West by electing Ibikunle Amosun (ACN) Governor; rejecting Tunji Olurin (PDP), the protégé of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose daughter, Iyabo, was equally voted out of the Senate on April 9, losing the ballot even in her father’s polling unit.
Obasanjo’s influence in Ogun – which dates back three decades, being instrumental to its creation on February 3, 1976 when he was Deputy to the late Head of State, Murtala Muhammed – had been further demonstrated in 2003 when his pick, Gbenga Daniel, won the Governorship against the second term bid of Segun Osoba.
On Tuesday, the PDP also lost the Nasarawa Governorship to Umaru Al-Makura of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), who defeated Governor Aliyu Doma (PDP) with 3,885 votes.
Legislative elections held in all states, except Kaduna and Bauchi, which will vote today.
The Governorship ballot took place in only 23 states.
The remaining 11 – Adamawa, Bayelsa, Cross River, Kogi, Sokoto, Ekiti, Ondo, Edo, and Osun, Anambra, and Ekiti – will elect new Governors on different dates between 2012 and 2014.
Everywhere, the elections were contested mainly by the PDP, ACN, CPC, All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), and Labour Party (LP), with a sprinkling of minor parties.
In Edo, House of Representatives Majority Leader, Tunde Akogun (PDP) was sent packing in the rescheduled Akoko-Edo Federal Constituency election by Peter Akpatason (ACN), former National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers Union (NUPENG) President.
Akpatason scored 36,174 votes against Akogun’s 16,358.
However, state Assembly Speaker Bright Omokhodion (ACN) lost his Esan West seat to Monday Orhue (PDP) by 11,122 votes to 15,506.
Fashola (ACN) garnered 1,509,113 votes in Lagos to beat Adewole Dosunmu (PDP) (300,450), and other ACN candidates won all the 40 state Assembly and three rescheduled House of Representatives seats.
Alao-Akala (PDP) failed to make history as the first Governor to rule Oyo State for two terms.
His opponent, Ajimobi (ACN), scored 420,852 votes spread at 25 per cent or more in 26 councils.
Alao-Akala got 387,132 votes spread at 25 per cent or more in 22 councils, followed by former Governor Rashidi Ladoja (Accord Party, AP), who won 275,773 spread at 25 per cent or more in 10 councils.
Abeokuta was aglow when the INEC declared that Amosun (ACN) polled 337,487 to beat Olurin (PDP) (188,698). The Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN) candidate, Gboyega Isiaka, who has the backing of Daniel, got 137,051.
Amosun had contested and lost the Governorship in 2007 on the platform of the ANPP.
All major roads, especially the Presidential Boulevard leading to state INEC headquarters were on Wednesday jam packed with a jubilant crowd of ACN supporters, who wielded brooms, the party’s symbol.
They drove against traffic, causing a snarl and disorderliness and affray in some cases.
Osoba, state ACN leader, led supporters to walk from his Ibara GRA residence to the INEC office to join Amosun to get the result formally announced.
At about 1.20 p.m. when the result was announcement, gun shots were fired at the GRA private residence of Amosun with blaring of sirens trailing the shots.
Daniel congratulated him, saying his “victory actualises the yearning of the people of Ogun State for a change of political platform in the governance.”
He wished all victors in the state well and a successful tenure, and prayed that “the Almighty God will grant all those who have won the mandate of our people the right spirit and ability to consolidate on the achievements of the last eight years and take Ogun State and the Federal Republic of Nigeria to greater heights.
“To those who did not excel in the elections, I say tomorrow is another day.”
Daniel applauded the INEC for conducting fair, free and credible elections in Ogun, adding: “With the success of the electoral process, the confidence of the people has been restored in the democratic process and there is hope that the country is on the path to greatness.”
Amosun described his election as a “watershed,” stressing that he has accepted the mandate with “humility, a sense of responsibility, and profound gratitude to God Almighty and all the good people of Ogun state.
“The resilience and resourcefulness of our people coupled with the determination and enthusiasm demonstrated during the elections are great assets that will be fully leveraged.”
Al-Makura (CPC) scored 324,823 votes in the Nasarawa Governorship ballot to beat Doma (PDP) (320,938).
Al-Makura defected from the PDP to the CPC in January when the PDP denied him the ticket.
A CPC candidate, Ishaqu Kana, also beat the PDP candidate in Karu/Kokona/Keffi Federal Constituency, the Chairman, of the House of Representatives Information and Communication Committee, Ahmed Wadada, who has been in the House since 1999.
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