The Lagos State Government has said that the will of the people prevailed in the last gubernatorial poll in the State, adding that opposition parties are bad losers.
The State’s Deputy Governor, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, stated this on a Channels Television programme: “Sunrise Daily.”
Hamzat said out of the 13,345 polling units in the State, only about 349 had one form of issue or the other and that the number is less than 10 per cent of the polling units in the entire State.
The Deputy Governor observed that due to infrastructural and logistics problems, the Independent National Electoral Commission could not be everywhere at the same time, but did its best in conducting an election that was better than any other in the history of Nigeria.
His words: “This is a fantastic election and the will of the people prevailed.
“Governors lost senatorial seats unlike in the days of President (Olusegun) Obasanjo when the number of votes counted was more than the number of registered voters.”
Hamzat added that the reason Labour Party and Peoples Democratic Party are crying foul over the results of the election is that they lost, noting that the loss resulted from the gap created by decamped members of their party very close to the elections.
The Eagle Online recalls that Hamzat and Governor Babajide Santo-Olu won their reelection bid on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.
The candidate of the LP and PDP, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour and Dr. Abdulaziz Adeniran, also known as Jandor, came second and third.
Still speaking of the Channels Television programme: “Sunrise Daily,” Hamzat stated further that the violence witnessed during the elections should not be isolated in context as the polls reflected the kind of people we are.
While condemning the ethnic profiling witnessed in some parts of the State in the wake of the elections, he called for the arrest and prosecution of perpetrators.
He said: “Some of the people disenfranchised in the elections would have voted for us.
“Like in Ago Palace, I have a lot of friends there who would have voted for the APC.
“It is unfortunate to profile people based on ethnicity and culprits should be arrested and prosecuted.
“Let us stop diminishing our country.
“This is a credible election.”