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The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran better known as Jandor believes he could still be declared the winner of the March 18 governorship election in Lagos.
Jandor who came third in the election with a total of 62,449 votes believes the law could work in his favour having approached the Lagos governorship election petition tribunal to challenge the victory of the incumbent governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
In the election, Sanwo-Olu, the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) scored a total of 762,134 votes to emerge victorious, while Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour of the Labour Party secured a total of 312,329 votes to finish second.
However, while speaking on Arise TV on Tuesday, April 11, 2023, Jandor explained that both Sanwo-Olu and Gbadebo were not qualified to run for governorship in the first place.
According to him, the nomination of Sanwo-Olu by the APC and Gbadebo by the LP contravened the electoral act, adding that the APC candidate submitted a fake WAEC result to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In his petition, the PDP candidate argued that Gbadebo did not comply with the requirements of the electoral law in the conduct of the primary election that produced him as the candidate of the Labour Party.
As a result, he prayed the court to declare all votes cast for both Sanwo-Olu and Gbadebo in the election wasted.
Justifying how he could be declared the winner of the election with less than 63,000 votes, Jandor explained that if Sanwo-Olu and Gbadebo’s votes are declared wasted based on his petition, he would be declared winner of the Lagos state governorship election.
He said, “The position of the law, section 136 of the electoral act subsection 2, says that in a situation where the person with the highest number of votes is disqualified on the basis of the fact that he wasn’t even qualified ab initio to run for that election, the second person, who has the second highest number of votes would also benefit from that one provided such a person also makes the requirements of the law and a member of the political party upon which he ran. Otherwise, the next person with the highest number of votes would be declared the winner.
“The first and second votes based on disqualification will be considered wasted votes. That is the position of the law. I didn’t write the law and that is our prayer.”
Jandor also dismissed the claim that there is a conflict in the Lagos PDP following the election. He said he has a fine relationship with every member of the party.