APC’s Aiyedatiwa wins Ondo West, other LGAs, projected for landslide victory {DETAILS}

BY KEMI KASUMU

“Yes! and FEDECO, Federal Electoral Commission (or what was it called then again?) in Oja Oba, Akure, as high as it was, was brought down to ashes because Ondo State people don’t tolerate nonsense. So, if you trust us on this, then if Aiyedatiwa wins this election, don’t think that we are pro-APC. We are not. We are simply who we are as Ondo State people – the no nonsense Nigerian citizens,” he explained.

The incumbent Governor of Ondo State and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Saturday November 16, 2024 governorship election in the state, Hon. Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, has won the elections in Ondo West Local Government Area in addition to Local Governments results earlier declared.

The DEFENDER reports that Aiyedatiwa scored 20,755 votes to defeat his closest rival, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Agboola Ajayi, who scored 6,387.

He has also won in virtually majority of the local governments results declared so far.

By the strongholds of political influence that Lucky Aiyedatiwa has done well so far, there probability that he is poised to clinch a decisive victory in the overall polls is one, as he is now believed to set for a landslide victory in the exercise.

As the results declared at local governments collation centres continued to trickle in and majority favour Aiyedatiwa, we gathered the main factor that occupied the minds of Ondo State electorate in deciding their next leader from this governorship election was personality not party, otherwise, “the APC’s unimpressive performance at the federal level” was enough to cost the “good man” – as Aiyedatiwa was called to our reporter – the election victory.

“But in Ondo State, you cannot sway us from our focus especially when we know our onions. I will only refer you back to why Rotimi Akeredolu family in his first coming but passed in his second coming. So, this is not about whether we are indifferent to the hardship that has ravaged our living system for going to two years of APC now because we know Aiyedatiwa didn’t cause it.

“That is coded, left for you to research and decode. We are not influenced by what people in other climes are saying but in what we believe will serve our interest in Ondo State,” an Ondo Central voter said to The DEFENDER via internet call Saturday night.

As at 11pm Saturday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had uploaded 98.42 percent of the election results to its iREV portal, although not any Nigerian count that as even the court had punctured the importance of the technology, done by the Buhari government to endure free, fair and credible election in Nigeria, in some of their judicial decisions in the past.

An analysis of the results uploaded from all the 18 Local Government Areas of the state, however, strongly suggests that Aiyedatiwa will win in 16 Local Governments with wide margins.

Although there is a standing rule that only the INEC is vested with power to declare winne in an election, projections by a media organization (not The DEFENDER) indicate that Aiyedatiwa’s closest rival, Agboola Ajayi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is likely to secure victory in Idanre Local Government while the winner in Ajayi’s home council of Ese-Odo could not be clearly projected due to what the projections described as “too close” situation between Aiyedatiwa and his predecessor former Deputy Governor of the Akeredolu’s era.

Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa is projected to win landslide in Akoko North East, Ifedore, Akoko South West, Akoko North West, Okitipupa, Akoko South East, Ileoluji/Oke Igbo, Ilaje, Owo, Ondo East, Erelu, and Akure North, securing landslide wins in these areas.

Aiyedatiwa is also expected to outperform Ajayi in Ondo West, Akure South, Ese, and Odigbo, as reflected in the results uploaded on INEC’s portal, according to the projections all things being equal.

The lesson the outcome of Saturday’s governorship election will teach politicians, particularly in Ondo State, is that bad-belly is not one of the tools required to be successful in an electoral context in a society where voters have the minds of their own.

The DEFENDER gathered this assertion from comments in certain quarters where defence was being made for possible emergence of Aiyedatiwa at the long run.

“You don’t live with us in Ondo State although you are from here and you would understand me better. There were a lot of campaigns of calumny against the personality of Governor Aiyedatiwa with some using traditional institution affairs that he helped settle as deputy to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu to witch-hunt him at the ejection. What for?

“If not for him, Ondo State will be in turmoil by now but we use this ejection to acknowledge his am capacity and ability to unite Ondo State people under the banner of peaceful coexistence and security because we know what is good for us as state people not what somebody from somewhere dictates as good for us. No,” one of the respondents confided in The DEFENDER without disclosing his identity.

He also added by saying “all the character damages the combination of political jobbers and traditional leaders agents deployed against his person using distorted and manipulative technologies we knew. We have used this election to make our bold statement that we are not a pushover in Ondo State and that dates back to history of Old Ondo State. Go and find out. When we voted for Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin and they brought a supposed federal radio station suddenly preparatory to the 1983 elections, which they used to attempt upturning our mandate in favour of Akin Omoboriowo, that was the end of the Second Republic democratic experience.

“Yes! and FEDECO, Federal Electoral Commission (or what was it called then again?) in Oja Oba, Akure, as high as it was, was brought down to ashes because Ondo State people don’t tolerate nonsense. So, if you trust us on this, then if Aiyedatiwa wins this election, don’t think that we are pro-APC. We are not. We are simply who we are as Ondo State people – the no nonsense Nigerian citizens,” he explained.