Published by Andrew Ngozi Okonye
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has declared the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, as the winner of Saturday’s presidential election.
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| All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu |
Mr Tinubu defeated 17 other candidates who took part in the election. He scored a total of 8,794,726 votes, the highest of all the candidates, thus meeting the first constitutional requirement to be declared the winner.
Tinubu, a former Lagos State governor, was declared the president-elect after the 70-year-old polled 8,794,726 votes to win the 2023 presidential election.
The INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, announced Tinubu as the winner at the International Collation Centre in Abuja during the early hours of Wednesday.
Tinubu won the election ahead of other contenders — the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Atiku Abubakar; the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi; and the New Nigeria Peoples Party candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso.
The three leading presidential candidates won in 12 states each while Kwankwaso claimed only Kano State.
Tinubu edged Atiku, a former vice president and his closest challenger, with no fewer than 1.8 million votes.
The PUNCH reports that the 2023 presidential election is the first time that Tinubu contested for the nation’s top job. The former senator left office as a two-term governor of Lagos State in 2007 and is credited with leading the coalition that ousted the PDP from power in 2015 and has extended his influence beyond the South-West region in recent years.
Aside from Tinubu; Obi; Atiku, and Kwankwaso, other candidates that gunned for the nation’s oval office include Dumebi Kachikwu of the African Democratic Congress; Kola Abiola, People’s Redemption Party; Omoyele Sowore, Africa Action Congress; Adewole Adebayo, Social Democratic Party; Malik Ado-Ibrahim, Young Progressive Party; Prof Christopher Imumulen, Accord Party; Prof Peter Umeadi, All Progressives Grand Alliance; and Yusuf Mamman Dan Talle, Allied Peoples Movement.
The list also includes Hamza Al-Mustapha, Action Alliance; Sani Yusuf, Action Democratic Party; Nnnadi Osita, Action Peoples Party; Oluwafemi Adenuga, Boot Party; Osakwe Felix Johnson, National Rescue Movement; and Nwanyanwu Daniel Daberechukwu, Zenith Labour Party.
A tally of the votes announced by electoral officials from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Tinubu, in Borno, polled 252,282 votes across the 27 local government areas and was declared the winner by the state Collation Officer, Prof. Jude Rabo.
Atiku and Obi could only garner 190,921 votes and 7,205, respectively while Kwankwaso amassed 4,626 votes.
In Rivers State, Tinubu raked in 231,591 votes from 23 LGAs while the LP scored 175, 071 votes and the PDP polled 88, 468 votes.
The Federal Capital Territory, however, proved to be a game changer for the Labour Party, which floored both Tinubu and his PDP counterpart.
Obi’s popularity in Abuja fetched him 281,717 votes while the former Lagos governor and the former VP shared the remaining slots of 90,902 votes and 74,149 respectively. Kwankwaso also polled 4,517 votes.
But Tinubu made up for his losses in some northern and middle belt states which included Zamfara, Kwara, Kogi, Benue and Kogi States.
In Benue, the APC amassed 310,468 votes to relegate LP (308,372), PDP (130,081) and NNPP (4,740) to second, third and fourth places.
In Zamfara State, he polled 298,396 votes against LP’s 1,660; NNPP’s 4,044 and the PDP’s 193,978 votes.
As expected, Obi soared above other candidates in Plateau where he won by 466,272 votes compared to APC’s 307,195; PDP’s 243,808 while NNPP settled for 8,869 votes.
The states won by Tinubu so far include Ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Kwara, Ekiti, Kogi, Benue, Zamfara and Jigawa, while Atiku emerged victorious in Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe, Kaduna, Kebbi, Bayelsa, Adamawa and Akwa Ibom.
On the other hand, Obi has won Lagos, Enugu, Cross River, Nasarawa, Imo, Anambra, Abia, Delta and Plateau states as well as the FCT.
In the final computation, APC polled 8,794,726 votes, PDP amassed 6,984,520 votes, LP scored 6,101,533 votes and NNPP garnered 1,496,687 votes.
Declaring Tinubu as the winner, the INEC boss said, “That Tinubu Bola Ahmed of the APC, having satisfied the requirements of the law is hereby declared the winner and returned elected.”
Calls for Cancellation of Presidential Election Results
In a follow up to the press conference of the national chairmen of the Peoples Democratic Party, African Democratic Congress (ADC) and Labour Party, the vice presidential candidates of the PDP, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta state and Senator Datti Baba-Ahmed of the Labour Party have called for the cancellation of the presidential election because of violation of the constitution and the 2022 electoral act.
Addressing a joint press conference in Abuja, Okowa and Datti said that the presidential election held Saturday cannot stand because it was a rape on democracy snd was unconstitutional.
The text of the press statement read by the PDP Presidential running mate, Governor Okowa said, “We wish to state for the records that last weekend’s election was a sham. It was neither free nor fair. What played out yesterday at the National Collation Center exposes the National Chairman of playing to a predetermined script.
“Our position remains that the election and transmission of the results must be in tandem with the Electoral Act and the INEC guidelines.
“There is no doubt that INEC is under a statutory obligation to transmit election results electronically. Paragraph 38 of the INEC manual made pursuant to section 149 of the Electoral Act 2022 and the 1999 constitution as amended provides for this. That paragraph, which deals with the transmission of results at the polling units, is crucial, and it imposes statutory obligations on the part of INEC to upload polling units results on its portal.
“There is no doubt that polling units results are the pyramid upon which other results are built. Therefore, it is required that the moment polls come to a close and the results are declared, the results must be uploaded on INEC server or portal.”, Okowa stated.
According to Okowa, “Paragraph 38 of INEC Manual 2022 made pursuant to the provisions of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended and section 149 of of the Electoral Act 2022 provides that: “On completion of all the Polling Unit voting and results /procedures, the Presiding Officer shall:
“Electronically transmit or transfer the result of the Polling Unit, direct to the collation system as prescribed by the Commission.
“Use the BVAS to upload a scanned copy of the EC8A to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), as prescribed by the Commission.
“Take the BVAS and the original copy of each of the forms in tamper evident envelope to the Registration Area/Ward Collation Officer, in the company of Security Agents. The Polling Agents may accompany the Presiding Officer to the RA/Ward Collation Centre.” It is mandatory and compulsory. INEC has no option.
“So, the failure to upload results and follow the procedures set out in paragraph 38 of the manual made pursuant to the Electoral Act 2022, is a fundamenal breach that has the potential of rendering the election results that did not follow those procedures null and void.”, he stressed.
Accordingly, Okowa said, “For clarity, Section 64 (4) (a) and (b) of the Electoral Act, 2022 specifically provide thus:
“A collation officer or returning officer at an election shall collate and announce the result of an election subject to his or her verification and confirmation that the –
“number of accredited voters stated on the collated result are correct
and consistent with the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section 47 (2) of this Act ; and
(b) “votes stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the votes or results recorded and transmitted directly from Polling Units under Section (60) (4) of this Act”, he explained.
Consequent on the above Section 60 (4) of the Electoral Act 2022, Okowa stressed, “any result announced by INEC is ultra vires, illegal, and of no consequence unless they are results already transmitted DIRECTLY from the Polling Units.
“So procedurally, INEC cannot continue to announce results that are yet to be transmitted as expressly stated in the relevant Sections of the Electoral Act.
”The law is that where the law has set out the procedures to be followed, that procedures and no other must be followed”, he emphasized.
According the PDP Presidential running mate, “The argument that INEC guidelines have no force of law is idle and wayward arguments. This is not even the question of alterations of the results. It is a question of noncompliance with mandatory statutory provisions.
“The argument that it is only when the Chief Electoral Officer of the Federation announces the winner of the Presidential election that the results can be uploaded on the INEC portal cannot be correct. There must be uploading of results at the polling units after the polling officers had announced the winner at the polling units.
“Finally, we call on the commission to thread the path of honor by canceling the election outright and commence the process of a fresh election that will not only be credible but will be seen to be credible by Nigerians”, he stated.
Obasanjo's call for cancellation of results challenged by FG
Obasanjo in a letter titled, ‘An appeal for caution and rectification,’ released on Monday, alleged that some politicians had compromised electoral officials to make the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System machines redundant, adding that danger is lurking around the country over the alleged compromise of the electoral process.
But the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed in a response described the ex-president’s statement on the polls as inciting, self-serving and provocative.
Mohammed in a statement by his media aide, Segun Adeyemi, said the former President’s call on Buhari to prevail on the INEC chairman to stop the collation process was nothing ‘’but a calculated attempt to undermine the electoral process.’’
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