Lagos PDP says Agbaje has not dumped party as rumoured

Several people, including Femi Fani-Kayode, a PDP chieftain, had reported that Agbaje has left the party barely two weeks after he lost the election.

"First it was Musiliu Obanikoro, then Iyiola Omisore, then Gbenga Daniel and now Jimi Agbaje. All my closest friends and brothers are abandoning ship and leaving PDP! Ouch!" Fani-Kayode tweeted on Tuesday, March 20, 2019.

However, the party's Lagos State secretary, Prince Muiz Dosumu, dismissed the rumour, in a statement on Tuesday, as an "absolute fallacy".

"This is to disclaim the rumour going round that our governorship candidate, Mr Olujimi Agbaje, has left the PDP. This is an absolute fallacy and could only have happened in the imagination of the rumour peddler," he said.

A spokesman of Agbaje also told Daily Trust that, "There is nothing like that".

Dosumu said the party's leader in the state, Bode George, has already embarked on serious peace initiative to foster unity in the party.

"We cannot afford to start again as we usually do, battles after every elections, till another one," he said.

Even though the election had been expected to be a close contest, Agbaje lost to Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) with a margin of 533,304 votes, according to the result announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday, March 10.

The pharmacist failed to win in any of the state's 20 local government areas and finished with 206,141 votes while Sanwo-Olu, a former commissioner, polled 739,445 votes.

Agbaje, who's now lost in three governorship elections, said the low turnout of voters for the election is bad for democracy, especially in a state with the highest number of registered voters.