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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The presidential candidate of Labour Party in the February 25 election, Mr Peter Obi, has said he won in Lagos because indigenes of the state voted for him than those referred to as visitors.
Lagos is the base of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate and president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. The state was believed to be the stronghold of the APC, having been in power since the return to democracy in 1999. Nobody gave Labour Party a chance in the state until Obi pulled off an upset by defeating Tinubu with about 10,000 votes.
Speaking on Arise TV on Monday, Obi said people who voted for him did not do so on the basis of ethnicity, saying the electorate knew what he stood for.
He added that he got more votes from Lagos indigenes than those referred to as visitors.
“In the South East, it is a similar situation; people know me, people know what I stand for, people know I have kept my promises. People know I’ve kept to what I have said.
“It is a simple thing, people go about and say, ‘oh! he got votes in Lagos because of the Igbo,’ and I ask how many Igbos live in Lagos? I got more votes from indigenes in Lagos than those who you can call visitors.
“Are the Igbos in Nasarawa, are the Igbos in Plateau, are the Igbos in Abuja? In Rivers, where you know that the governor came out against me and everything, I still… If the real votes of Rivers were counted, Reuben, I won. I had over 50 something per cent of the vote.
“The other two parties were sharing the others,” Obi said.