CLAIM: Shortly after Nigeria’s Labour Party candidate, Alex Otti, won the gubernatorial election of Abia State on March 18, 2023, social media users began circulating a claim that he was the party’s first elected governor in history.
One of the tweets read, “First Labour Party Governor. Your Excellency @alexottiofr congratulations sir.” Several accounts elsewhere on Twitter and Facebook also made the same claim
VERDICT: FALSE
The News Chronicle gathered that the first Nigerian governor elected on the platform of the Labour Party was Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State. The gubernatorial elections of 2007 in Ondo state initially saw Olusegun Agagu of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) emerge as the winner.
Olusegun Mimiko, the Labour Party’s candidate in Ondo who lost to Agagu, asked the courts to cancel the results and declare him the winner. Two years later, an appeal court annulled Agagu’s victory on February 23, 2009, handing the governorship to Mimiko.
