Gov poll: APC, PDP battle for Lagos, Benue, others
The results of presidential and parliamentary elections have spurred the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party to go back to the drawing board ahead of Saturday’s governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections.
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| National Chairman, APC, John Oyegun and National Chairman, PDP, Adamu Mu’azu |
There were strong indications on Saturday that the two political parties had been meeting stakeholders in states, where they were head-to-head in the March 28 presidential poll.
THE house to house campaigns were being carried out in Lagos, Benue, Nasarawa and Adamawa states, where the differences between the two parties were not wide in the presidential election results.
According to the results released by the Independent National Electoral Commission on Wednesday, the APC got 792,460 votes in Lagos State, while the PDP had 632,327 votes.
In Benue State, the APC polled 293,296, while the PDP had 253,134. In Nasarawa, the APC got 236,838 votes and the PDP had 273,460 votes.
Besides house-to-house campaigns, the two parties would, this week, meet, community leaders in many states to address low turn-out of voters experienced during the presidential poll.
In Lagos, for example, out of 3,767, 647 people that collected their permanent voter cards, only 1,678,754 were accredited for the presidential poll.
In Benue State, 1,607,800 voters collected their Permanent Voter Cards, but only 754,634 turned up for the presidential election.
In Nasarawa, 1,222,054 people got their PVCs, while 562,959 were accredited for the presidential poll.
An APC chieftain, said, “We are confident of winning governorship elections in Lagos, Benue, Nasarawa and Adamawa. I won’t disclose all our game plans. What I can tell you for now is that we will work on the low voters’ turnout recorded across the country during the March 28 elections.”
The PDP national leaders had on Thursday met with its 36 governorship candidates in Abuja, where it was gathered that they were directed to also work on low voters’ turnout
“We will close the gaps between us and the APC in Adamawa and Benue. We are confident of winning the two states and Kaduna, which we lost in the presidential poll,” a member of the PDP’s National Working Committee, who pleaded anonymity because he was not permitted to speak with the media, said.
Our correspondents gathered that the APC planned to control at least 25 states after Saturday’s governorship poll.
They include Lagos, Ogun, Oyo and Osun in the South-West. In the South-South, it was learnt that it was hopeful of winning Rivers State, in addition to Edo, which it currently controls.
The opposition party is targeting to triumph in five North-Central states of Kwara, Nasarawa, Plateau, Benue and Niger where governorship elections will be held on Saturday.
The APC, it was learnt, planned to win all the seven states (Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Jigawa) in the North-West and the six in the North-East (Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe and Taraba).
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