Fashola also said the election revealed that the support base of PDP, the major opposition to APC in Lagos has shifted
By Kehinde Okeowo
All Progressives Party (APC) chieftain and Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola has disclosed that the defeat of his party by the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi in Lagos State during the February 25, 2023 poll came as a big shock.
The former Lagos State governor also asserted that the outcome of the election revealed that the support base of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), which has been the major opposition to APC in Lagos for 24 years has shifted.
Fashola made the remarks when he appeared as a guest on Channels TV programme “Sunday Politics”, where he attributed LP’s victory in Lagos State to their ability to turn out their voters.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria also noted that LP decimated the chances of PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and added that APC knew states where it had high chances of winning and had concentrated its energy in those states.
Fashola, however, admitted his party was blindsided in some cases. “In some cases, you get blindsided. We were blindsided in Lagos because the opposition turned out their voters there,” he said.
“And you also saw that a party that has been competitive for 24 years, the umbrella party, suddenly disappeared. It showed that their support base has shifted.”
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Asked whether LP’s victory in Lagos at the presidential poll surprised the APC, he said, “Yeah, blindsided us, without a doubt. They turned out their voters and in the subsequent gubernatorial election, we turned out our voters.”
Fashola also said the APC conducted pre-election internal polls but never released LP could surprise it in Lagos.
He went on to describe the polls that predicted victory for Obi and Atiku prior to the election as “badly conducted”.
Obi polled 582,454 votes in Lagos to trounce Tinubu, who scored 572,606 votes. However, the APC candidate won the highest total votes in the election and was declared the President-elect by the electoral umpire.