Two weeks after the landmark presidential election that saw the incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan from Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) conceding power to his foremost contender, Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Nigeria is at the polls again. This time for the governorship and states houses of assembly.
Accreditation began at 8 o’clock at many polling stations as scheduled. Only 29 out of the 36 states of the country is having elections Because states like Osun, Ekiti, Edo and Anambra had elections earlier.
Nigerians are looking at a keen battle between the two biggest parties, PDP and APC for states like Lagos, Kaduna and Rivers States, where the candidates are considered equally strong.
For example, the ruling APC candidate, Akinwunmi Ambode, who is supposed to be riding the recent victory and groundwork laid by his predecessors who have been ruling the state for 16 unbroken years.
But Jimi Agbaje, candidate of the PDP appears to be drawing strength from the huge support of non-indigenes, creating the same voting pattern that occurred during the presidential polls. Vote along ethnic divides.
The hullabaloo generated by a statement by the traditional ruler of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu, threatening the Igbo in the state to vote for the APC candidate or perish in the Lagoon, has also raised the stakes in the election.
In Rivers State Dakuku Peterside, who is the governorship candidate of the APC, is backed by the incumbent, Governor Chibuike Amaechi, while his opponent in the PDP, Nyesom Wike is believed to have the backing of the presidency.
The run-up to the elections in the state has been characterised by violence, with several people killed. The state has been listed by the National Human Rights Commission, to be one of the flashpoints in this election, alongside Lagos, Kaduna and some other states.
Kaduna State is also going to be tough ground as APCks Mallam Nasir El-Rufai will be seeking unseat PDP’s Mukhtar Yero.
El-Rufai comes into the race with his pedigree as the former minister of the Federal Capital Territory who transformed the FCT for he better during his tenure.
On the other hand Yero is the incumbent and is expecting that the work he has done in the state so far will carry him through.
