Tinubu scores majority votes in presidential election, may be declared winner

Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of Nigeria’s ruling party, APC, has scored a majority of votes in the presidential election held on Saturday across the country.

Although the final results have not been announced at the national collation center in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, election officials in 36 states and Abuja have announced the results for each state.

A PREMIUM TIMES tally of the results showed that Mr. Tinubu led his closest challenger, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, by more than 1.8 million votes after the tallying of results from 36 states and Abuja

Mr. Tinubu, the former governor of Lagos State, has now got 8,805,420 votes. He also won elections in 12 states.

Atiku scored 6,984,290 votes and also won 12 states.

Labor Party candidate, Peter Obiclosely followed by 12 winning countries and 6,093,962 votes obtained.

In fourth place is Rabiu Kwankwaso who had 1,496,671 votes and won the state – Kano State.

Mr. Tinubu won the elections in Rivers, Borno, Jigawa, Zamfara, Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo and Ogun.

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.

In addition to scoring the constitutionally required majority vote, Mr. Tinubu has also met the second requirement of 25 percent of the vote in 25 states (two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and Abuja).

25% requirement

Section 134 of the constitution sets out the conditions that a candidate must meet to be declared the winner of the presidential election.

The section states: “(1) Candidates for election to the office of President shall be deemed to have been duly elected, if there are only two candidates for election.

“(a) he has a majority of votes in the election; and

“(b) he has not less than a quarter of the votes in the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”

---

Also read: #NigeriaDecides2023: Tinubu wins in Kali, beats Obi, Atiku

---

Some people have interpreted part b above to mean that the winner must score 25 percent of the votes in Abuja, but the majority of lawyers said that the interpretation only treats Abuja as the 37th state of Nigeria and thus 25 percent in 25 states is sufficient.

Based on INEC results, Mr. Tinubu has a minimum of 25 percent in 30 states. Atiku has a minimum of 25 percent in 21 states, while Mr. Obi has a minimum of 25 percent in 17 states.

Possible scenarios

As of 10:30am on Tuesday, the final collection of results was underway at the national collation center in Abuja.

At the center, apart from checking the total votes scored by each candidate and the 25 percent spread, officials will also check the number of canceled votes in all states.

The number will be counted to check if the canceled votes are more than the margin of victory; circumstances which may result in by-elections in affected polling units.

If that is not the case, Mr. Tinubu will be declared the winner of the election and the president-elect.

Call LP/PDP for cancellation

While the APC and its supporters may be in an optimistic mood based on the results, the PDP and LP have called for the annulment of the results.

The PDP and LP announced their positions at a Tuesday press conference attended by their vice presidential candidates, Ifeanyi Okowa and Datti Baba-Ahmed.

“This election is fake, and it was never free and fair,” said Mr. Okowa of the PDP, a position reinforced by the LP vice-presidential candidate.

The main grouse is that INEC has failed to upload election results in over 170,000 polling units to the central server (IReV) as required by law. These steps should be taken before the collection and announcement of results, he said.

At the press conference, the two parties also demanded that the chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, must get rid of what they described as electoral irregularities and malfeasance. INEC has since responded, saying its chairman will not resign and that any party aggrieved by the electoral process must follow the law to lodge a complaint.