Fourty-Eight hours after the 22 October local government elections in Lagos State and protests have been trailing the conduct of Saturday's council polls even ahead of the official announcement of the results.

The premises of the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission in Ikoyi, Obalende is being manned by heavy security after allegations that the electoral officer Zac Hunpatin had absconded without declaring results.

This has fueled speculations of some foul play. The reactions followed the announcement of results by a state-run television station contrary to LASIEC's instructions warnings not to do so.

Lagos State held elections into the 20 local government areas and 37 local council development areas of the state. A total of 28 political parties participated in the election in which 5000 candidates contested for 57 chairmanship seats and 376 councillorship positions in the state.

LASIEC is yet to release the official results from Saturday's council polls, and the main show down is between the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the ruling Action Congress of Nigeria. The opposing PDP has rejected the outcome of the polls, alleging that they had been rigged to favour ACN.

Low voter turn-outs marred the elections which the electoral commission is still struggling to collate and announce the results officially, however there are indications that the ACN won most of the seats on offer, while the PDP was the favourite in the Badagry region.

LASIEC has denied accusations that it doctored any of the results and said no polls were rigged in favour of the ACN.

Those who hailed the conduct of the elections included International Observers and Domestic Affiliates, IODA; West African Youth Peace Mission; Forum of State Independent Electoral Commissions of Nigeria, FOSIECON; Northern Nigeria Union of Election Observer, NNUEO; Senator Gbenga Ashafa, ACN, Lagos East; and Mr. Kehinde Bamigbetan, ACN chairmanship candidate, Ejigbo LCDA.
While the party's leaders were quick to hail the conduct of polling stations, it wasn't peaceful at all polling stations.



There were reports from the Vanguard of the arrest of four LASIEC officials in Epe over election offences and the police confirmed on Sunday that it had begun investigation into the alleged discovery of thumb-printed ballot papers in a diplomatic car belong to a PDP member in Eti-Osa Local Council.



According to the reports, Commissioner of Police, Mr. Yakubu Alkali confirmed to the press that several persons were arrested during the polls for violating electoral laws.



CSP Cyril David, Divisional Police Officer also added that six other persons were also arrested for various offences during the just-concluded election in Epe, reports confirmed.



Lagos State Chairman of PDP, Mr. Sentoji Koshedo, said in a phone interview with the Vanguard that his party believed the elections to be rigged by LASIEC given the commission's delay to announce results.



“It is an extension of the big fraud by LASIEC to prevent the opposition from being part of the governance of Lagos. They are building an empire for themselves," Koshedo said.
LASIEC tried to show a level of fairness initially. Later we learnt of their plans, which they used to disenfranchise voters and our supporters. We are not going to accept the results."



“We have video clips of the results and we have the original copies of the results which were also given to the police and security agencies. In Badagry West, PDP won three seats out of five. In Badagry East, we won two out of five seats and in Badagry Central, we won the chairmanship and seven out of 10 councilors. Now, they are saying we didn’t win anything at all.”



ACN's Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe dismissed the results and went on to accuse the PDP of purposefully disrupting polling activities at Eti-Osa LGA.



“On the whole PDP is trying to create confusion, inciting the voters to violence and circulating false claims of electoral victories in places like Badagry, Ikoyi-Obalende, Agege-Iganmu and Epe,” he told the Vanguard.



There were also disruption at the polls in the Ajeromi Ifelodu council area in Lagos, where residents of Onibaba Street in Ajegunle protested the shortage of ballot papers.



Residents on that street who spoke to news agencies also accused LASIEC of delaying the voting process and providing insufficient voting materials.



"We have 678 registered voters on this street but they brought 100 ballot papers, 50 for chairmanship and councillorship elections each. It is deliberate,’’ Mr. Segun Abiodun told the press, expressing his dissatisfaction with the process.



LASIEC Commissioner in charge of Operations and Logistics, Mr Musbau Oyefeso refuted the accusation that there were insufficient ballot papers, and said they would have produced them on demand had they fallen short.



”Our judgement is based on the turnout for the April general elections. We don’t want to waste the materials,” he said.