New Telegraph

El-Rufai: Electorate changed minds on APC 3 weeks to poll

 

Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai said opinion polls conducted three weeks to the just-concluded Edo State governorship election showed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, would win the election. He stated that he can’t explain what went wrong in the last two weeks of the campaign.

 

Speaking yesterday when he featured on Sunrise Daily, a programme on Channels Television, el- Rufai said the election was “reasonably decent”.

 

Godwin Obaseki, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), polled 307,955 to defeat Ize-Iyamu, candidate of the APC, who polled 223,619 votes. According to the Kaduna governor, indications pointed out that the ruling party would emerge successful until three weeks to the poll.

 

He said “unlike past governments”, Buhari allowed the will of the people to prevail in the election. “We’d have loved to win. Quite frankly, I was optimistic up to three weeks ago because there was indication that we were going to win. I don’t know what happened in the last two, three weeks of the campaign.

 

“As you know, a large number of voters make up their minds in the last two weeks of election, many voters decide no matter what happens, this is how I’m voting.

“Three weeks ago, the polls clearly showed that APC was going to win, but the results came out differently from what we expected. There was very little violence or none at all. So, Obaseki has won, that’s it.

 

“One thing that President Buhari’s government has always done is to say that there must be free and fair elections and the people’s choice must prevail.

 

The president has never used what is called federal might that other governments have used in the past to steal elections. We always insist that everyone should go and pitch to the people and may the best man win and we can live with it,” el- Rufai said.

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