Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the ruling party, All Progressive Congress(APC) has been declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) as the winner of the February 25th presidential election in a tightly contested poll amid several.
In the final result declared by the INEC chairman Mahmood Yakub at the National Collation Centre, Abuja on Wednesday morning, where the election results of each state were being presented since three days ago, Mr Tinubu gathered 8,794,726 votes across 12 states to emerge the president-elect.
Meanwhile, Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP) followed closely having scored 6,984,520 votes across 12 states while Peter Obi of the Labour Party(LP) garnered 6,101,533 votes also from 12 states to become third.
Former Kano state governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party(NNPP) finished fourth in the poll with 1,496,687 votes, with just one state, which was in Kano.
Meanwhile, the whole electoral process had not been without controversies, with the leading opposition parties PDP, LP and ADC calling for the cancellation of the presidential elections, arguing that INEC did not comply with the law in the collation and announcement of results.
They had requested INEC to display the results captured on its IReV portal from each polling unit to crosscheck with the manual results being announced by the Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC) and the State Returning Officers from each state during their presentation inside the Abuja collation venue.
To be declared the winner, a candidate must score the highest number of votes and at least 25 percent of votes in 25 states (two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the federal capital, Abuja).
