Sunday’s figures showed the Lagos governor easily won a local election with low turnout, a victory for Nigeria’s ruling party just weeks after the commercial capital backed the opposition in a hotly contested presidential election.
With votes counted in constituencies representing 95% of voters, incumbent Progressive Congress Party leader Babajide Sanwo-Olu secured more than 736,000 votes, compared to just 292,000 votes for his closest rival, Labour’s Gbadebo Rhodes Favour, according to a report Independent National. electoral commission.
The turnout was only a fraction of the 7 million registered voters in Africa’s largest metropolis with over 20 million inhabitants.
The Lagos elections were the culmination of the race for powerful government posts in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states, as well as state assemblies across the country.
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The Lagos race was set to end after opposition Labor party candidate Peter Obi won a majority of the state vote in last month’s contentious presidential election, won by the APC’s Paula Tinubu.
Tinubu himself is a former governor of Lagos, who ruled the state from 1999 to 2007 and has since been credited with selecting his successors there, including Sanwo-Olu.
Obi said widespread fraud robbed him of his victory, and political analysts said his handling of last month’s presidential election may have discouraged some voters from voting in Saturday’s regional election.
Some officials from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who presented the results in Lagos on Sunday, reported that some ballot boxes had been hijacked by bandits, but said it was not widespread enough to affect the outcome of the vote.
