Estimated reading time: 7 minute(s)
Sodiq Ojuroungbe
Unarguably, Prince Gboyega Nasiru Isiaka, the governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress(ADC) in Ogun state was the most popular candidate among all other 40 governorship candidates that contested for the number one seat in the state.
This is not unconnected to the fact that he had contested twice before the last election and had visited all the 236 wards in the state more than two times.
When the contest for who will take over from the incumbent governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun started, many had thought that Isiaka would emerge as the next governor because of his reported acceptance among all the candidates across the state.
GNI, as he is fondly called had contested against the incumbent governor twice in 2011 and 2015 under two different political parties which include; the People’s Party of Nigeria (PPN) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) respectively.
While different analyses and opinion polls conducted two weeks before the governorship election favoured GNI, things took a new turn one week to the election day when almost all the forces behind Isiaka left him for the governorship candidate of All Progressives Congress, Prince Dapo Abiodun.
Investigation conducted by PLATFORM TIMES revealed that the last minute alignments by many political parties and stakeholders in the state with Dapo Abiodun made him emerge as the governor-elect to the detriment of Isiaka and the governorship candidate of Allied Peoples Movement, Adekunle Akinlade, among others.
Investigation also revealed that almost all the human resources and structures behind GNI backed out at the last minute to drum support for Abiodun.
Some of the backbones of GNI who left him some days to the election include the ADC Senatorial candidate for Ogun Central, Titi Oseni-Gomez, and Senatorial candidate for Ogun East, Deji Ashiru.
However, PLATFORM TIMES observed that the last minute defection of the senatorial candidates and some House of Representatives candidates of ADC automatically kicked out Isiaka from the race even before the start of the ballot casting.
From the outcome of the election results as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission, PLATFORM TIMES observed that GNI was only able to poll large votes from Ogun west where he came from, while he got little votes from Ogun Central and East respectively.
GNI polled 110,422, Akinlade garnered 222,153 while Abiodun won 241,670
PLATFORM TIMES also observed that the ADC was able to win 2 local governments areas out of the 20 in the state.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s)
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