Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday formally elected Dr Adewale Gomez as its senatorial candidate for Lagos Central for the 2023 General Elections in the primary exercise conducted in Fuja Street, in the Surulere area of the state, polling 127 votes to beat Victoria Olubanke Oniru, who scored 29 votes, to a second position.
Six contestants contested the seat, including Sunmbo Onitiri, Alhaji Rasheed Teslim Balogun, Dr Adetokunbo Pearse and Dr Babs Akinlolu.
Otunba Segun Adewale had earlier in the day emerged the party’s candidate for the Lagos West Senatorial seat, with 264 votes to defeat his opponent, Hon. Yemi Ogungbe who polled just two votes, in an exercise which took place in Ikeja area of Lagos.
Nicholas Akobada became the party’s candidate for Lagos East, scoring 74 votes, to defeat Agnes Adenike- Shobajo who polled 63 votes, in an exercise conducted at the PDP Secretariat in Somolu, late Monday night.
Nigerian Tribune had earlier reported that aspirants for the Lagos Central Senatorial seat, including Dr Pearse and Oniru had kicked against the purported exercise conducted at the same venue on Monday, in which Gomez was declared winner, describing such as kangaroo, while calling for its cancellation.
The rescheduled primaries, which saw the emergence of Gomez, commenced at around 4:25, with delegates from Lagos Island allowed in one by one to cast their votes.
Delegates from the rest four local governments, including Eti-Osa, Apapa, Surulere and Mainland took their turn thereafter to cast their votes.
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Announcing the results of the exercise, which witnessed the presence of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Nigeria Police and other security agencies, Chairman of PDP Senatorial Election Committee, Daniel Ochu-Baiye said Gomez scored 127 votes to emerge the winner.
The other results he announced as he sorted them out one after the other are: Dr Pearse (15votes), Sunmbo Onitiri (7), Dr Babs Akinlolu (3) and Rasheed Teslim (1).
Ochu, while speaking with newsmen after the exercise, described it as free, fair and credible, even as he commended the party delegates for conducting themselves in a peaceful and orderly manner to make the exercise successful and rancour-free.
“The process is very peaceful, it is fair. It is very peaceful, I am really proud of the way the delegates have conducted themselves,” he said.
Reacting to his victory, Gomez expressed joy, describing it as a victory for the party, the former Deputy National Chairman of PDP, Chief Olabode George and the Convener of Lagos4Lagos, Dr Olajide Adediran, the party’s governorship aspirant, just as he ascertained that victory for the party in the coming general elections was 100per cent sure.
He, however, assured that he would rally all the co-contestants in the race to join hands and build a formidable platform to end the reign of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State.
Also reacting, Dr Pearse expressed shock at the outcome of the primary which recorded a victory for Gomez, pointing out that he would have won the race, being a known aspirant and PDP chieftain among party members, but for the fact that those he described as “strangers” were ones that voted as delegates.
This was just as he alleged that a sitting councillor on the APC platform voted in the exercise.
“What transpired is that the three ad-hoc delegates are not people who are real members of the PDP, they don’t even know me. I am the lead aspirant, the one who has worked for the party for years.
“If it were members of the PDP that have voted in this election, I would have won the election. The three ad-hoc members that voted are all new, even in Lagos Mainland that I come from, they don’t know me, they are all members of Lagos4Lagos people. That is what happened,” he said.
On the possibility of challenging the result, he said his next step would be determined by what the electoral panel says.
“If for instance the electoral panel says what happened yesterday (Monday) with someone claiming to be the winner of the primaries and he uses that to canvass for today’s primaries, for that reason he would be disqualified, we will see.
“I don’t know what to do next, this is a shocker to me, but now I realised what happened. The people who voted are strangers to the PDP,” he said.
and then