Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Tuesday emerged president-elect having defeated Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) and 14 others.

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, who announced the result at 4.10 am,  said Tinubu got 8, 794,726 votes from the 24,025, 940 total valid votes cast.

He said Tinubu’s closest challenger, Atiku, polled 6,984, 520 votes.

LP’s Obi garnered 6,101,533; while Kwankwaso of the NNPP scored 1,496,687.

Yakubu said Tinubu, having satisfied the requirements of the law, is returned elected.

He said the certificate of return will be issued to the president-elect and the vice president elect, Kashim Shettima, by 3 pm today.

Tinubu, who defeated Atiku with over 1.8m votes, won majority of the votes cast in 12 states -Zamfara, Jigawa, Niger, Kwara, Oyo, Ekiti, Kogi, Benue, Ogun, Borno, Ondo, and Rivers states. 

On his part, PDP’s Atiku, who came second, also won in 12 states even as LP’s Peter Obi led in 11 states and the FCT. 

The states where Atiku won are Osun, Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina, Kaduna, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba; while Obi won in Abia, Lagos, Edo, Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi, Cross River, Delta, Nasarawa, Plateau and FCT.

Kwankwaso won in Kano. 

PDP, LP reject result, demand Yakubu’s resignation 

However, before the conclusion of the collation of the results this morning, the PDP and Labour Party had asked the INEC chairman to step down. 

At a press briefing in Abuja yesterday, PDP and LP alleged widespread manipulation and rigging, and demanded that the elections be cancelled and a fresh one conducted. 

This is even as the ruling APC and Tinubu have instituted a legal action to restrain the LP and the PDP from doing anything to stop the collation and announcement of the results.

Labour Party’s national chairman, Julius Abure, who spoke on behalf of his party and the PDP, said Nigerians had lost confidence in the electoral process because of INEC’s refusal to use electronic means of transmitting results as stated by the Electoral Act.

 “Section 60 sub-section 5 of the Electoral Act says that the presiding officer shall transfer the results, including total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballots in a manner as prescribed by the commission. A failure to comply with the provisions of the Electoral Act and the guidelines makes it imperative that all results recently uploaded on the IReV portal must be updated before they are announced,” he said.

“We, therefore, call on Yakubu to step aside from his role,” he said.

Also, the NNPP had demanded the cancellation of the presidential poll, accusing INEC of colluding with the ruling APC to manipulate the elections. 

NNPP National Chairman, Rufai Ahmed Alkali, at a press conference, said INEC’s refusal to use technology (IReV) to transmit results from polling units to the server had compromised the integrity of the elections. 

He alleged that INEC had taken Nigeria back to the pre-2015 era “where voters were deliberately and systematically disenfranchised; where ballot box snatching and ballot box stuffing was the norm; where voter suppression was widespread; where violence and vote-buying were the main deciding factors of the outcome of elections.

“Where security agents openly took sides with the ruling party and participated actively in rigging elections; and where people who have not participated in an election are declared winners of the elections.”

Senator Patricia Akwashiki, chairman, Board of Trustees, ADC, in a statement, said the PDP and LP’s demands were not its position.

Meanwhile, in the court documents filed by APC and Tinubu on Tuesday before the Federal High Court in Kano and marked FHC/KN/CS/43/2023, the Action Alliance and the INEC were joined as defendants; and the APC vice presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima, as a plaintiff. 

The plaintiffs, in a motion on notice filed alongside the originating summons, asked the court to make an order restraining the defendants from stopping the collation and announcement of the results because “damages will not adequately compensate for the injury that may be occasioned on the plaintiffs if by the defendants stop the collation of the result.” 

The suit was supported by an affidavit deposed to by Abdullahi Abbas, the APC chairman in Kano.

However, when the counsel for the plaintiffs, Sunusi Musa (SAN), moved the ex-parte motion attached to the summons, the judge, Justice A. M. Liman, held that “the chief judge of the court has directed that no exparte application may be issued by any judge” and that in compliance with the directive, he declined to entertain the ex-parte motion.