Former president Olusegun Obasanjo probably had a premonition that he and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would be roundly routed in last Saturday’s election into the National Assembly in Ogun State, by the burgeoning Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) which clinched all the three senatorial seats and most of the federal constituencies’ seats in the state.
When he was sarcastically asked by a reporter if he was still laughing when he came for accreditation at the Ita-Eko Ward 11 polling booth 1 near his Abeokuta family house at about 11am on election day, Obasanjo calmly answered, “You can’t say everything is a laughing matter the way I said I dey laugh o, because it is a serious matter now”.
The election results turned out not to be a laughing matter for Obasanjo, who lost not only in his polling unit but also in his entire ward. His daughter Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello lost her bid to retain the Ogun Central Senatorial seat while the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole also lost the Abeokuta South Federal Constituency seat.
Perhaps PDP would have emerged victorious in the state if the pre-election crisis foisted on it apparently by Obasanjo was resolved amicably before the poll. Obasanjo had fought a tough supremacy battle with Governor Gbenga Daniel who had to leave the PDP with his supporters to the Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN), which the governor had earlier registered with INEC as a fallback.
If, for instance, the 46,148 votes polled by the PPN in the Ogun East Senatorial District is added to the 52,613 garnered by the PDP in the district, both scores would have amounted to 98,761 votes, above ACN’s winning margin of 76,543
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