Daily Independent (Lagos)
Olisemeka Obeche And Akinwunmi King
13 October 2008
It was celebrations galore for Action Congress (AC)chairmanship candidates on Sunday, as the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) presented Certificates of Return to winners of the weekend poll.
Chairman of the Commission, Fatai Adeyinka, said the election was conducted under peaceful atmosphere.
Initially, the Commission's chairman did not announce the result of the election before presenting certificates to winners. But due to pressure from newsmen and some party agents, he announced part of the result.
The event, which was expected to kick off at 12 noon, did not commence until almost 6 p.m.
According to Adeyinka, AC candidates won all the 57 chairmanship posts. Despite low turnout of voters, the chairman claimed AC had 74,000 votes in one of the councils.
However, at the time of filing this report, only four councils' results had been announced officially.
Adeyinka, nevertheless, said the results had been pasted on the Commission's website, www.lasiec.gov.ng. A visit to the website showed only 47 of the 57 councils' results.
Alex Gbadebo, who contested for chairmanship post in Ikosi-Isheri Local Council Development Area under the platform of National Conscience Party (NCP)said the election was not free and fair.
"Why did they fail to announce the result in the first place, they would not have announced it if not for the pressure from journalists. As far as we are concerned in the NCP, Saturday's election was not free and fair," he said. Meanwhile, AC's state Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, has expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the poll and the orderly conduct of voters throughout the exercise, describing it as "the most peaceful election ever conducted in Nigeria since the June 12, 1993, presidential election".
"We thank the media for the wide coverage of the election, LASIEC for organising a hitch-free election and Lagosians for their good conduct at the poll and demonstration of their faith in the unprecedented performance of the AC-led administration of Babatunde Fashola through their votes.
"We drove round the metropolis and noticed minimal police presence and yet, Lagosians went to cast their votes responsibly and in quiet manner.
"We are not surprised at the performance of our party in the election because we went into the exercise well-prepared. We expected nothing but a clean sweep of the poll, since AC has no serious opposition in Lagos.
"Though, we went into the exercise thinking we had a formidable opposition, but the withdrawal of our opponents made the victory easier for us, but saved them from a scandalous defeat. They made the election just a mere formality for us," Igbokwe said.
On the claims by the opposition that the Lagos State government was promoting constitutional illegality by proceeding to conduct an election into the contentious 37 LCDAs in the state, Igbokwe said the excuse does not hold water as the Federal Government had nothing to do with local government creation.
"The issue of 37 LCDAs is a forgone one because Lagos State Government had long fulfilled its constitutional duty on that by getting the approval of Lagosians whose opinion on it matters most, and getting the plebiscite passed by the House of Assembly," he said.
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