Gbenga Ashafa Loses Senate Bid

Senator Gbenga Ashafa has lost his bid to return to the Senate, for a third term on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.

The 63 year-old senator lost by a wide margin, the primary for the Lagos East ticket to a four-term House of Assembly member, Bayo Osinowo, according to the results announced Saturday by the All Progressives Congress (APC) Electoral Committee of the National Assembly and State House of Assembly primaries in Lagos.

Ashafa was expected to run unopposed in the primary as Osinowo was not originally cleared by the National Working Committee of the APC to stand in the election. It was not clear when the NWC gave Osinowo the nod to run for the seat.

As far as the Ashafa Support Group is concerned, the result may be a nullity as Ashafa only went into the primary for affirmation. In . other words, he ran against himself.

“Hon. Bayo did not scale through the screening of the party and so could not contest an election. Senator Gbenga Ashafa only came out to be affirmed by his constituents”, the group tweeted on Friday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the primaries, including a repeat of the senatorial primary election, were held on Friday.

The senatorial primaries initially held on Thursday, but were cancelled and rescheduled owing to logistic issues.

Announcing the results in Ikeja, Chairman of the committee, Mr Lucky Imasuen, said the primaries were contested for the three senatorial seats, 24 House of Representatives and 40 state House of Assembly seats .

In the results of the senatorial primaries, Imasuen said Sen.Oluremi Tinubu, who was unopposed, polled 89,494 votes to emerge as candidate for Lagos Central.