Anxiety as INEC holds supplementary poll in Lagos on Saturday

The electorate in Ajeromi/Ifelodun Federal Constituency in Lagos State will file out on Saturday, April 27, 2019 for the supplementary election to conclude election in the affected areas, which was declared inconclusive by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on February 23, 2019.

This was affirmed last Wednesday after a meeting with stakeholders. There were fears that the outcome of the exercise may further worsen the sour relationship between Yoruba and Igbo communities in the area if the election is not carefully and transparently handled.

Concerned citizens of the state and indeed Nigerians are already urging the commission to ensure that the Saturday exercise is fair, transparent and devoid of any practice that can cast doubt on its integrity to avoid another ethnic crisis that may possibly spread across Lagos.

Although, for the timely intervention of concerned stakeholders and ‘providence’, the February 23 presidential and National Assembly elections in Lagos nearly set the Yoruba and the Igbo communities against one another, a scenario INEC is expected to carefully guard against on Saturday.

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The major opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which candidate, Rita Orji, is the incumbent lawmaker representing the area, is not resting on its oars to retain the seat while the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Mr. Kolawole Taiwo, are banking on the party’s victory in the last general elections to oust the incumbent lawmaker on Saturday.

While Orji may be banking on the fact that Ajeromi/Ifelodun is highly populated by non-Yoruba indigenes, Taiwo, who is a three-term lawmaker in Lagos State House of Assembly, is of the belief that Lagos politics transcends ethnic sentiments.

According to a political observer in the area, “As small as the election may look, it is going to be tough and INEC is expected to be at its best.”