By Emeka Ugwuanyi
The Independent National Electoral commission (INEC) has declared the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Party (APC) Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the winner of presidential election held on Saturday, February 25, 2023.
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.
He also scored over 25 per cent of the votes cast in 30 states, more than the 24 states constitutionally required.
Tinubu won in Rivers, Borno, Jigawa, Zamfara, Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo and Ogun States.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who announced the final results in the early hours of Wednesday in Abuja, said Atiku Abubakar of the PDP came second in the election.
Atiku polled a total of 6,984,520 votes in the election.
Peter Obi of the Labour Party came third in the election with a total of 6,101,533 votes while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP came fourth with 1,496,687 votes.
Yakubu said a Certificate of Return for the President and Vice President will be presented by 3 p.m. on Wednesday at the National Collation Centre.
Only the top four candidates won the presidential election in at least one state. Each of Messrs Tinubu, Atiku and Obi won in 12 states while Mr Kwankwaso won only in Kano.
However, winning a majority of states is not a requirement for a candidate to be declared the winner of the election.
States Won
Tinubu won the election in Rivers, Borno, Jigawa, Zamfara, Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo and Ogun states.
Atiku won in Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Kaduna, Gombe, Yobe, Bauchi, Adamawa and Taraba states. He also won in Osun, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa states.
Mr Obi won in Edo, Cross River, Delta, Lagos, FCT, Plateau, Imo, Ebonyi, Nasarawa, Anambra, Abia and Enugu states.
Kwankwaso won in only Kano State.
While the APC and its supporters celebrate their electoral victory, the PDP and the LP have called for the cancellation of the results.
The PDP and LP made their positions known at a Tuesday press conference attended by their vice-presidential candidates, Ifeanyi Okowa and Datti Baba-Ahmed, respectively.
“The election was a sham, and never free and fair,” said Mr Okowa of the PDP, a position corroborated by the LP’s vice-presidential candidate.
Their main grouse is that INEC failed to upload the results of elections in the over 170,000 polling units onto a central server (IReV) as required by law. That step should have been done before the collation and announcement of results, they said.
At the press conference, the two parties also demanded that the chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, must step aside over what they described as electoral irregularities and malfeasance. INEC has since replied, saying its chairman would not resign and that any party aggrieved with the election process should follow the law to air its grievances.
Final results of the 2023 presidential election as presented by the INEC chairman at the collation centre on Wednesday March 1, 2023.
Total registered voters 93,469,008
Accredited voters 25,286,616
Total votes cast for political parties
A 61,014
AA 14,542
AAC 14,608
ADC 81,919
ADP 43,924
APC 8,794,726
APGA 61,966
APM 25,961
APP 12,839
BP 16,156
LP 6,101,533
NNPP 1,496,687
NRM 24,869
PDP 6,984,520
PRP 72,144
SDP 80,267
YPP 60,600
ZLP 77,665
Total valid votes: 24,025,940
Total rejected votes: 939,278
Total votes cast: 24,965,218
