The Jagaban Of Borgu, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has been declared winner of Saturday’s presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the chief returning officer of the presidential election, announced the two-time former Lagos governor as the winner despite opposition parties’ call for the cancellation of the elections over allegations that INEC failed to comply with the law in the collation and announcement of results
The electoral umpire had failed to comply with its own regulations and guidelines mandating electronic transmission of results from over 170,000 polling units to a central server known as the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) before the collation and announcement of the final results.
After the conclusion of the state-by-state collation at about 1 AM on Wednesday, INEC declared that Tinubu polled a total of 8,794,726 from the 36 states and the FCT to emerge president-elect “having satisfied the requirement of the law”.
Yakubu said Tinubu won the election ahead of his closest contenders, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who got 6,984,640, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party who secured 6,096,017 votes.
Former Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso, who contested the election on the platform of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), came fourth with 1,499,303 votes.
While Tinubu won in 12 states, Obi won 11 states and the Federal Capital Territory. Atiku won 12 states while Kwankwaso won one.
Per requirement of the Nigerian Constitution (1999), a candidate must secure a minimum of 25% of the total votes cast in 24 states and the FCT before he/she can be declared winner of a presidential election.
Section 134, sub-section 3 of the Constitution instructs that “in default of a candidate duly elected in accordance with subsection (2) of this section there shall be a second election”.
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