Hamzat Knocks Jandor, Gbadebo Over Alleged Irregularities In Lagos Gov Poll

Obafemi Hamzat, the Lagos State Deputy Governor, has dismissed claims of widespread irregularities, violence and voter intimidation levelled by major opposition members in the recent governorship election held in the state.

This comes after criticism by several local and international election observers, including those of the US Mission, which gave firsthand accounts of attacks and ethnic profiling.

However, Hamzat downplayed the allegations of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Abdul-Azeez Adediran (Jandor), and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour.

The deputy governor during a live appearance on Tuesday on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily said that he has heard all sorts of commentary about this election and he feels it is an unkind statement from Nigerians.

“Unfortunately, people tend to be bad losers. So, instead of re-examining what exactly happened: ‘How do I get better?’ The PDP candidate was saying, ‘We contested against INEC.’ No. The reality was, you lost all your party members.” He said.

Hamzat  while speaking went on to name some Lagos PDP defectors whose departures had a negative effect on the party’s governorship campaign. The names he mentioned  include Ade Dosunmu, Wahab Owokoniran and Funsho Doherty, who is the chairman of the PCC for Atiku/Okowa and Jandor in Lagos.

He further said, the campaign director for the PDP candidate also resigned and left. He added PDP lost everybody around them which made them unable to manage the party, thus, making them not do well.

The deputy governor added that the same thing was the case for the Labour Party.

According to him, Sunbo Onitiri who contested for the Senate for Central left the party. The Chairman of the party before Kayode Salako also left the party.

Hamzat claimed that both opposition candidates were not looking at the real issue which he said is their inability to manage organisations.