Sophia Michaels
Fashola said the Labour Party’s victory in Lagos was a “wake-up call” to the party’s members in the country.
He said the party’s victory in the presidential poll showed that the people of Lagos had turned on the incumbent President, Atiku Abubakar, and wanted a new government.
“The victory of the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi in Lagos State shocked members of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The APC conducted pre-election internal polls but never released it, describing polls that predicted victory for Obi and Atiku as “badly conducted”.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who headed the Election Planning Directorate of the Tinubu-Shettima campaign, said his party knew states where it had high chances of winning and had concentrated its energy in those states.
However, Fashola said his party was blindsided in some cases. “In some cases, you get blindsided. We were blindsided in Lagos because the opposition turned out their voters there,” he said.
“And you also saw that a party that has been competitive for 24 years, the umbrella party, suddenly disappeared. It showed that their support base has shifted.”
Asked whether LP’s victory in Lagos at the presidential poll surprised the APC, he said, “Yeah, blindsided us, without a doubt. They turned out their voters and in the subsequent gubernatorial election, we turned out our voters.”
