Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, expressed surprise at the victory of Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, in Lagos State during the February 25, 2023 poll, stating that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was blindsided by the outcome. Fashola, who is a former Lagos State governor, made these remarks during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
Fashola revealed that the APC had conducted pre-election internal polls but did not release the results, dismissing polls that predicted victory for Obi and his running mate, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as “badly conducted”. He stated that the APC had focused its efforts on states where it believed it had a high chance of winning, but was caught off guard in Lagos as the opposition party turned out their voters in large numbers.
Fashola also noted that the outcome of the presidential election in Lagos was surprising as the PDP, which had been a competitive party in the state for 24 years, saw a decline in support, indicating a shift in the political landscape. Obi had polled 582,454 votes in Lagos, defeating Bola Tinubu, a former Lagos State governor, who scored 572,606 votes. However, Tinubu won the highest total votes in the election and was declared the winner by the electoral umpire.
Tinubu emerged as the winner in 12 out of Nigeria’s 36 states and secured significant numbers in several other states, garnering a total of 8,794,726 votes, nearly two million votes more than his closest rival, former Vice President Atiku, who received 6,984,520 votes. Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, won in 11 states, including Lagos and Abuja, the nation’s capital. Atiku, like Tinubu, was victorious in 12 states.
However, despite the LP’s victory in the presidential election, its candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, lost to the APC’s Babajide Sanwo-Olu in the March 18 governorship poll. Sanwo-Olu secured a total of 762,134 votes, defeating Rhodes-Vivour, who received 312,329 votes, followed by the PDP’s Abdul-Azeez Adediran with 62,449 votes.
In light of the surprising election results, Atiku and Obi have approached the court to challenge Tinubu’s victory ahead of his inauguration on May 29, 2023. The political landscape in Lagos and Nigeria as a whole continues to evolve, with unexpected outcomes shaping the future of the country’s political landscape.
