8th April, 2011
Political parties will once again rekindle their rivalry as the rescheduled National Assembly elections hold in some part of the country tomorrow.
Nigerians will go to the polls to elect 469 National Assembly, NASS, members, which include 109 senators and 360 House of Representative members.
The NASS poll will not only be a supremacy battle among political parties but also a clash of personalities.
In Lagos State, the battle is between four political parties which include Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Labour Party, LP, and Social Democratic Mega Party, SDMP.
As expected, the ACN which is dominating the state affairs for the past 12 years, is expected to carry the day.
The party’s candidates for the NASS polls are expected to coast home to victory in almost all the constituencies, going by the recent gains recorded by the party, with the decampment of many prominent members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
But according to political pundits, the party will have some pockets of resistance in some local areas such as Lagos Island, Ikorodu, Surulere, Eti-Osa, Ikeja, Epe and Agege where they have embarked on damaging campaigns that voters should reject the ACN candidates.
The ACN also faces the normal antagonism from Ibeju Lekki, where it had conceded some grounds in the past elections.
It was reliably gathered by Political Platform that the major political parties in the race for various national legislative seats tomorrow are not leaving anything to chance in ensuring that voters are mobilised to perform their civic duties.
In grassroots mobilisation, the ACN again has some advantage over its rivals as it maintains a peerless structure at all local levels.
In Lagos West, Senator Ganiyu Olanrewaju Solomon, GOS, a former chairman of the old Mushin Local Governemnt and a former member of the House of Representatives, is expected to win re-election by a large margin as his rival, Moshood Olagoke Salvador of the PDP is not as popular as GOS.
GOS whose strongest point is his popularity at the grassroots was returned unopposed at the party primaries.
He has overtime, as a result of his grassroots popularity, earned himself the appellation, “untouchable†as he was the only senator in ACN whose position was not in contention among the serving senators in the state.
In Lagos Central, Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu will slug it out with her male rivals, Dapo Durosimi-Etti of the Labour Party and Tola Animashaun of the PDP. Etti was a confidant of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He was a former permanent secretary in the state civil service and was forced to retire in some controversial circumstances under the administration of Tinubu.
Gbenga Ashafa, a former permanent secretary, is fighting for the ticket in Lagos East. Apart from the obstacles he could encounter in Ibeju-Lekki, he is a clear favourite to win the senatorial seat at the polls.