After days of rigorous compilation of the results of votes of last Saturday, February 23, Presidential election from across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) early Wednesday declared President Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of the election.
According to the figures released on the election by the chief Returning Officer and INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmmod Yakubu, President Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) polled a total of 15,191,848 votes to defeat the other party candidates.
His closest rival and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled got 11,262,975 votes.
Yakubu declared Buhari winner and that the Certificate of Return would be presented both to him and the Vice-President elect later today.
An analysis of the result showed that the incumbent President won in 19 states while the PDP contender won in 17 states and the FCT. The results showed that Buhari defeated Abubakar with a wide margin of 3,928,873 votes.
Reacting to the INEC’s declaration which confirmed him as the winner of the election, Buhari, in a brief address to members of his campaign team at the party’s campaign secretariat in Abuja, thanked Nigerians for their support and another opportunity given him to serve another four years.
He enthused: “I am deeply humbled that you found me worthy of continuing to serve you.”
Meanwhile, the PDP candidate in the election has rejected the results of the poll, describing the entire process as a sham.
Abubakar, in a statement issued Wednesday morning in Abuja, claimed that there were premeditated malpractices in many states which negated the results announced.
He pointed out that one obvious red flag in the election was the statistical impossibility of states ravaged by terror over the years to have recorded higher votes than peaceful states.
He lamented: “The suppressed votes in my strongholds are so apparent and amateurish, that I am ashamed as a Nigerian that such could be allowed to happen. How can total votes in Akwa-Ibom, for instance, be 50 per cent less than what they were in 2015?
“Another glaring anomaly is the disruption of voting in strongholds of the PDP in Lagos, Akwa-Ibom, Rivers and diverse other states, with the authorities doing little or nothing and in some cases facilitating these unfortunate situations”, Abubakar added.
He alleged further that the militarisation of the electoral process was a disservice to Nigeria’s democracy.
