Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu says the same faith ticket featuring two Muslims, Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, as presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress caused the party’s defeat in the state in the February 25 presidential election.

Mr Sanwo-Olu, in an interview with Arise TV on Wednesday morning, added that ethnic sentiment and internal rancour in the APC also contributed to the defeat of the party in Lagos.

“It is beyond Lagos. But for us, we have been able to identify and look critically at what went wrong,” Mr Sanwo-Olu said. “The Muslim-Muslim ticket played a role. Because Lagos is also a centre of a lot of Christian population and the rest.”

Speaking further he said, “The other reasons are, some said from their ethnic nationality this was the first time they are having their son on the ballot. It is good, it is not good, na my pikin. I’m going to go ahead. We cannot force anybody.

“The third is that we ourselves have our internal wrangling, issues that were not fully resolved before we went into the election,” Mr Sanwo-Olu added.

In the February 25 presidential election, Mr Obi, a former governor of Anambra shockingly trounced Mr Tinubu in Lagos, polling 582,454 votes against the latter’s 572, 606 votes.

Mr Tinubu was subsequently declared winner of the election after total results from 36 states of the federation were collated by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). 

However, Mr Obi’s unprecedented victory in Lagos has positioned his party’s candidate Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, as a major challenge for Mr Sanwo-Olu in the governorship election scheduled to hold on Saturday.