By Abolaji Adebayo, Damilola Kushimo, Saheed Afolabi and Motolani AbdulGafar
Despite the low turnout of voters for the local government elections held on Saturday last week, the All Progressives Congress (APC) was able to gather enough votes to clear all the 23 political offices in Oshodi-Isolo LG, Isolo and Ejigbo LCDA.
Out of the total 49,084 votes cast for the chairmanship candidates in Oshodi, Isolo and Ejigbo, APC got 44,332 representing 90.32 percent of the total valid votes for the three council chairmen-elect; PDP raked in a total of 4,606 (9.38%) votes; YPP, though without chairmanship candidates in all the local councils, went home with meagre votes of 125 representing 0.26 percent while APGA, also without any chairmanship candidate, got the least vote counts only in Ejigbo LCDA – 21 votes which represents 0.04 percent of the total votes for the three local councils.
In Oshodi-Isolo LG, Otunba Kehinde Oloyede (Kendoo) of APC emerged the winner with the total valid votes of 25,466 (93.24%) of the total 27,312 votes recorded in the local government area.
Oloyede defeated his closest rival, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Hon. Ridwan Akinbiyi with 23,623 votes as Akinbiyi polled 1,843 votes while YPP got only 3 votes.
For the councillorship, APC also won all the seven wards.
In Ejigbo, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Hon. Monsuru Bello (Obe), got re-elected for a second term as the chairman of the local council having polled 10,090 votes out of total vote counts of 10,921 to beat his major contender in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Hon. Rasheed Otegbola who garnered 789 votes. The Youth Progressive Party (YPP) and All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) without candidates recorded 21 votes each.
APC got 92.39 percent of the total valid votes while PDP received 7.23 percent, YPP and APGA garnered 0.19 percent each.
There is slight difference in the total vote counts of Ejigbo and Isolo LCDAs, while Ejigbo recorded 10,921 votes, 10,851 electorate came out to vote for the chairmanship candidate in Isolo LCDA during the last Saturday local council election.
In the local council area, APC also swept all the political posts with landslide victory.
Though only two political parties – APC and PDP presented candidates for the chairmanship election, votes were also recorded for YPP as it was also on the ballot paper for presenting only one councillorship candidate in Ajao Estate Ward.
At the end of the exercise, the returning officer for the local council area, Olufemi Adeniji declared Hon. Adebayo Olasoju of APC as the winner and to be returned as the council chairman for the next four years.
APC also won all the seven councillorship seats in the council area.
Olasoju emerged winner with 8,776 votes out of the 10,851 votes against the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Hon. Tajudeen Bamigboye who scored 1,974 while the Youth Progressive Party (YPP) with no chairmanship candidate got a total of 101 votes.
In the ward-by-ward analysis of the results, Olasoju polled 1,013 votes in Alagbeji Ward, 3,355 in Akinbaiye, 1,023 in Ilasamaja , 597 in Okota, 987 in Apena, 1,280 in Ishagatedo/Ire-Akari and 521 in Ajao Estate.
On the other hand, Bamigboye of PDP had his highest votes in his ward – Ilasamaja where he scored 677 votes.
He had 464 in Akinbaiye, 167 in Alagbeji, 144 in Apena, 278 in Ishagatedo/Ire-Akari Ward, 139 in Ajao Estate and 105 in Okota Ward where he had the lowest vote counts.
Although YPP did not have a chairmanship candidate, it gathered six votes in Alagbeji, seven votes in Akinbaiye, 10 votes in Ilasamaja, 16 votes in Okota, three votes in Apena, 16 votes in Ishagatedo/Ire-Akari and 43 in Ajao Estate ward.
For the councillorship positions, Hon. Abiodun Odusina-Adeoye of APC recorded 1,215 votes from the 30 polling units in the ward while her opposition in the PDP, Hon. Ayobami Davies had 371 votes and YPP had nine.
In Akinbaiye Ward, Hon. Idris Babatunde Amusa was declared winner of the election having polled 3,198 votes to fend off competition with Adeoye Rilwan Agbabiaka of the PDP who had only 546 votes from the 28 polling units in the ward.
YPP who was without a candidate in the ward had six votes.
In Ilasamaja, the incumbent deputy leader of the council, Hon. Akeem Adeyemi (Alarape) was returned having polled 999 voted against 685 of the candidate of the PDP, Hon. Wasiu Shoetan and YPP had 11 votes.
Elsewhere, in Alagbeji Ward, Hon. Olanrewaju Kayode (Larry Kay) of APC polled 944 votes to defeat Opeyemi Osanyintola of PDP who scored 222 votes from the 15 polling units in the ward.
The candidates of APC in Okota, Apena and Ajao Estate, Hon. Kanayo Osondu, Hon. Yusuf Agbabiaka and Hon. Magnus Iheasirim polled 594, 965 and 424 votes to defeat the PDP candidates, Hon. Kazeem Ilelaboye, Hon. Oladimeji Shonubi and Mbachu Andrew who scored 112, 163 and 136 votes respectively.
The candidate of YPP in Ajao Estate had 55 votes.
Commenting on their victory, the candidates and members of the winning APC party who spoke to ECHONEWS claimed that they got massive votes due to the efforts the made to mobilise electorate.
The APC chairmanship candidate in Isolo who eventually won the election explained how each member of the party was saddled with the responsibility of mobilising voters in their various community before the election, saying everyone was working tirelessly to make sure people came out to vote for their party.
The vice chairman-elect, Hon. Shakir Adeola, whose polling unit in Akinbaye Ward recorded 500 votes for instance, told ECHONEWS that he was moving from house to house to canvass for voters’ support.
He said till the election time, he did not desist from calling people to come to exercise their civil right by voting for their own candidates, adding that all other party members and candidates across Oshodi-Isolo were also doing the same.
Reacting to the electoral process and the election proper, the PDP chairman in Oshodi-Isolo, Hon. Sunday Olaifa said though the election was relative smooth without any violence, he claimed that the results were manipulated.
He questioned the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) for not collating the election results first in each ward before the final counting and announcement of the results at the local council secretariat.
Olaifa wrote: “Going by the experience recorded in the on going local council election in Lagos State, APC has killed democracy not only in Lagos but in the whole Nigeria, it is that bad.
“How can you move collation of results from polling units straight to local government and eliminate Ward collation centre, getting to local government you begin to write results as you like, very unfortunate for us in this country.”
However, David Onoja, the Supervisor for YPP Party, said his party made mistake for not mobilising people for the party.
The party had only councillorship candidates in few wards and won a polling unit in Isolo.
Onoja said the party has learned a lesson and would work harder in the next election.
He said: The election is a normal game, we’ve been able to learn a lot through the process of the election. People don’t turn out and that’s obvious just that the turnout for the election was so poor. YPP would have been on the good side if we had started our campaign early because people don’t want the two popular parties. We have about 10 candidates in this election across Lagos but we only have one in Isolo and that is Ajao Estate ward.
“The electoral officers were averagely fair in their conduct because I was able to go out across the polling units and how the election was conducted because it was not fair at some point. LASIEC was averagely fair.
“As a party, we are not disappointed by this result though we were so confident of winning the councillorship in Ajao just that people didn’t really turn out. We are not giving up, because we have a starting point already and we are not going to stop, we will continue to meet our set goal which is to dominate just like APC persevered before they got to be the ruling party.”