The big example worked well in Lagos as a man who was close to President Jonathan and was seen as a strong contender lost PDP governorship primary to a new comer in the party through the ballot.
About four months after joining the PDP, Jimi Agbaje on Monday emerged as PDP governorship candidate for Lagos State. He defeated a former Minister of State for Defence and Nigeria's ex-High Commissioner to Ghana, Musiliu Obanikoro,who was touted as the leading contestant in the primary.
When the votes were counted, Agbaje defeated Obanikoro by
86 votes. Agbaje scored 432 votes as against the 346 by Obanikoro. Other aspirants, Babatunde Gbadamosi got 21 votes; Tokunbo Kamson, 46 votes and Adedeji Doherty, 21 votes.
The exercise was nearly marred by violence following a controversy which surrounded the number of votes cast by the delegates. When the voting started, the Chairman of the electoral committee, Senator Shehu Kumo, announced that there were 806 delegates.
But when votes were being sorted, it was discovered that the number of votes cast were 863.
All efforts to get the number of votes and the number of delegates to tally proved abortive but Kumo insisted that the exercise should continue.
Amid the resistance by supporters of some of the aspirants, about 60 armed policemen formed a barricade around the ballot boxes and ensured that the counting continued.
When tables and chairs were overturned at the centre, Obanikoro immediately stormed out. But soon after the announcement, Agbaje commended the committee and promised to work with other aspirants.
As the tension heightened, about 200 policemen and operatives of the Department of State Service stormed the venue. Agbaje was whisked away before policemen began firing gunshots into the air.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
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