But for Peter Obi, I would have been Governor of Lagos State today, Olajide Adediran, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in Lagos for the March 8, 2023 governorship election, said on Tuesday.
Popularly known as Jandor, Adediran, who eventually came a distant third in the election behind the duo of Babajide Sanw-Olu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who emerged winner and Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour of the Labour Party (LP), who came second, attributed his woeful loss to what he termed the “Peter Obi effect.”
A guest on Politics Today, a public affairs programme on Channels Television, he told his host: “The 2023 election came with this Tsunami that nobody ever expected and it was there for everybody to see. After Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) won the February 2023 presidential election in Lagos, the dynamics changed against the PDP for the governorship poll that was conducted weeks after.”
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had declaring Sanwo-Olu, the incumbent winner with a total vote of 762,134, Rhodes-Vivour, 312,329 votes, and Jandor with 62,449 votes, had been followed with intense legal challenge by the losing candidates, though both lost at the Supreme Court eventually.
Earlier at the presidential election which was held on February 25, Obi former Governor of Anambra State and the LP candidate, had trounced Tinubu, with 582,454 to 572,606 votes, though the former Governor of the state and APC candidate eventually became President, concerning the same Obi to the third position after Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.
Reviewing the development, Jandor, who said the election came with peculiar dynamics, added: “Before the February 25th general election, we were on the streets of Lagos and the ruling party was nowhere to be found. We had several debates and he (Sanwo-Olu) didn’t show up and he did say he didn’t want to share a stage with me.
“The 2023 election came with its dynamics, and it was a two-horse race until the presidential election. If you look at what happened in the presidential election, Peter Obi came first (in Lagos), Asiwaju came second, and Atiku came third.
“The moment that happened, there was this belief that if we do this, we can get this state off XYZ. So, we were victims of that. Each time I address my people, I tell them: look, we did everything but that wave came and swallowed the whole thing; nobody saw that coming. If not for the Peter Obi effect, I probably would have won the election at the governorship level. I believe it wasn’t God’s time yet for me to become Lagos governor at the time.
The ex-PDP bigwig, who has been having a running battle with Bode George, leader of the party in the state and former National Vice Chairman of the PDP, finally dumped the party citing the attitude of the party at the national level on the dispute.
Accusing some leaders of the party of sabotaging him, he said: “We were waiting to see if the party at the national level governed by the constitution of the party would look into the provisions of that constitution and say that for engaging in anti-party activities openly, this is the sanction.
“We waited patiently for two years and see whether that would happen, instead of that, the same person was appointed Vice Chairman, Disciplinary Committee by the national.”