Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu declared winner of presidential election; opposition demanding revote
Posted March 1, 2023 12:46 pm.
Last Updated March 1, 2023 1:43 pm.
Ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu was declared the winner of Nigeria’s presidential election early Wednesday.
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman Yakubu Mahmood declared Tinubu the winner and president-elect at the International Conference Centre in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos state and the flagbearer of the All Progressive Congress (APC), earned 8,794,726 votes across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Tinubu “having satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected,” said Yakubu.
He is slated to become Nigeria’s fifth democratically elected president.
But the two leading opposition candidates are already demanding a revote in Africa’s most populous nation.
Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) earned 6,984,520 votes while Labour Party’s Peter Obi had 6,101,533 votes to finish third.
Abubakar also finished second in the last vote in 2019, then appealed those results before his lawsuit ultimately was dismissed.
Further behind in fourth place was New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) candidate Rabiu Kwankwaso with 1,496,687 votes.
Tinubu, Atiku and Obi won 12 states each.
The 12 states won by Tinubu: Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Kwara, Benue, Rivers, Borno, Zamfara, Jigawa, Ondo, Kogi and Niger State.
Atiku of the PDP won: Taraba, Osun, Akwa Ibom, Adamawa, Kaduna, Sokoto, Yobe, Bayelsa, Kebbi, Bauchi, Gombe and Katsina.
Obi won the following states: Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Anambra, Abia, Delta, Edo, FCT, Plateau, Nasarawa, Lagos and Cross River.
The two leading opposition parties are demanding revote, saying that delays in uploading election results had made room for irregularities. The ruling All Progressives Congress party urged the opposition to accept defeat and not cause trouble.
The parties have three weeks to appeal results, but an election can be invalidated only if it’s proven the national electoral body largely didn’t follow the law and acted in ways that could have changed the result.
The Supreme Court of Nigeria has never overturned a presidential election.
—With files from The Associated Press
