MC Oluomo ‘Must Pay’ If He Broke The Law— Lagos Deputy Governor

Lagos State Deputy Governor, Obafemi Hamzat, has said that if the Chairman of the Lagos State Parks Management Committee, Musiliu Akinsanya, popularly known as MC Oluomo, has broken any law by his comment in the build up to the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections in the state, he will pay for it.

MC Oluomo had in a viral video warned Igbos that wanted to vote against the APC in the March 18 elections in the state to stay at home.

However, following widespread public criticisms, he denied threatening the Igbos, saying he was addressing a lady called “Iya Chukwudi”, not the Igbos in Lagos.

But making appearance on Channels Television’s programme “Sunrise Daily” on Tuesday, Hamzat said: “In the case of MC Oluomo, he has come out to say that he was actually referring to one woman that is Mama Chinedu or something like that. There’s a video that shows that and that woman said, ‘He was talking to me and we’ve been friends or he’s been my customer for years.

“[She said] that he was talking to her. So, I don’t know the facts, but people should examine the facts and if in truth he has broken the law, of course, he must pay for it. It’s as simple as ABC.”

Speaking on the governorship election in the state, the deputy governor, described the governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, as bad losers.

Both Rhodes-Vivour and Adediran have expressed disappointment on the conduct of the just concluded governorship election in the state.

They alleged voter intimidation, voter suppression as well as falsification of results by some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

While Rhodes-Vivour and his party, the LP, have said they will challenge the outcome of the election, Adediran has said he is still consulting to decide on whether to challenge the outcome or not.

Hamzat said that both parties lost some of their key members in the build up to the election, adding that the two governorship candidates could not manage their parties very well, because they do not have the experience.

He averred that contrary to all the negative commentaries about the election, only about 1 percent of the polling units in the state recorded violence and disruptions of voting process.

According to him, out of 13,325 polling units in the state, violence and disruptions of voting process happened in only 349 polling units.

“I’ve listened to all sorts of commentary about this election. And I think it’s very unkind; very, very unkind for Nigerians.

“Lagos has 13,325 polling units. Alimosho for example has 1,545. Only three violence were recorded. Three out of 1,545. The whole of Lagos, 349 polling units had issues with violence, disruptions; 349 out of 13,325. So if you figure that out, that’s 1 percent. We all went to school. You don’t get 100 percent in order to get A,” the deputy governor said.

“Unfortunately, people tend to be bad losers. Instead of re-examining what exactly happened, how do I get better?” he said.

Hamzat explained that Nigerian election is probably the biggest anywhere in terms of monolithic election, because single ballot is used across the country.

He noted that considering the logistics issues associated with conducting election in Nigeria as well as infrastructure deficiency in the country, it would be asking for too much for anybody to expect INEC to perform 100 percent.

The deputy governor also stressed that it was not true that the just concluded governorship election in the state was the worst, adding that reports on violence and disruptions of voting process are being exaggerated.

“We all diminish this country when we exaggerate what happens. My point is that you’ve an election where you’ve this number of polling units and you’ve less than 1 percent that has a problem; and we now make it look like that 1 percent is more important than 99 percent. I think that’s just outrageous. We should not diminish our country and say the election is bad. No, no. This is a great election,” Hamzat said.

The Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections in the state were characterized by violence, massive low turnout of voters, voter intimidation and voter suppression. There were reports of violence in Amuwo Odofin, Oshodi-Isolo, Ojo LGAs, among others.

There were also lots of ethnic slurs before, during and after the elections, which has led to rising tensions in the state.