Governor Dapo Abiodun of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has lost his local government to Ladi Adebutu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the ongoing gubernatorial and states assembly elections in Ogun.
Messrs Abiodun and Adebutu both hail from Iperu-Remo, Ikenne Local Government Area of the state.
In a loss that ridicules Mr Abiodun’s boast of public support for his re-election, the incumbent scored 9,133 votes to trail his rival Mr Adebutu, who polled 12,472 votes, according to figures obtained from the result viewing portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), IReV.
In the same local government, Mr Adebutu also floored Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, giving credence to the public disapproval of the Abiodun-led administration.
Some of the polling units in the local government were, however, canceled due to disruption by political thugs.
Mr Adebutu’s daring upbeat is ascribed to the last-minute synergy between major opposition parties such as the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and most recently, the Labour Party (LP).
Saturday’s election in the council was characterized by violence and ballot boxes hijack especially in Iperu-Remo, the hometown of Abiodun and Adebutu.
At Iperu-Remo, the home town of Governor Dapo Abiodun, there were shootings when hoodlums suspected to be political thugs snatched away two ballot boxes at Polling Unit 05, Ward 03 in Ayegbami area of the town.
The hoodlums had invaded the polling unit on motorcycles and started shooting into the air with the aim of chasing away voters.
They however, succeeded at escaping with one of the ballot boxes, before security operatives, particularly the policemen on election duty at the nearby road intersection could respond with a corresponding gun shots to the scene while the Assistant Polling Officer for the unit, Alalade Babatunde had been beaten up.
The development however, resulted in chaos, forcing many electorates to scamper for safety to avoid being hit by strayed bullets.