TOKUNBO Abiru, candidate of the All Progressives Congress has been declared the winner of the December 5 bye-election of Lagos East Senatorial District by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC).
Ademola Oremosu, the INEC Returning Officer for the bye-election, declared the result at Somolu collation centre on Sunday.
Oremosu said Abiru polled a total of 89, 204 votes to defeat his closest rival from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Babatunde Gbadamosi, who gathered a total of 11,257 votes.
The Bye-election was contested by 12 political parties, 12 candidates out of which three are females while nine are males.
According to Oremosu, Muyiwa Adebanjo of Action Alliance (AA) got a total of 96 votes, Mercy Adeoye of African Action Congress (AAC) scored 248 votes, while John Kome of African Democratic Congress (ADC) polled 376 votes.
He further announced that Adebowale Ogunlaru of Action Democratic Party (ADP) polled 535 votes, Olusola Babatope of Allied Peoples Movement (APM) scored 202 votes, Florence Trautman of Labour Party (LP) got 58 votes, while Adijat Lawal of New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) polled 52 votes.
Oremosu added that Akin Olukunle of National Rescue Movement (NRM) got 65 votes, Saheed Aluko of Social Democratic Party (SDP) scored 35 votes, while Taiwo Temitope of Young Progressive Party (YPP) scored 208 votes.
He noted that out of the total registered voters of 1,261,673 in the district, the total accredited voters were 104, 894, the total vote cast was 104, 405, the total valid votes were 102, 336, while the rejected votes were 2,069.
The election was necessitated by the death of the former senator representing Lagos East, Adebayo Osinowo. Osinowo otherwise known as ‘Pepperito’ died on Monday, June 15, at 65 years-old.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via labolade@icirnigeria.org, on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94