BREAKING: INEC declares Tinubu winner of the presidential election

Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate for the All Progressives Congress, has been declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

After receiving 8,794,726 votes to win the 2023 presidential election, Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State, was named the new president.

In the International Collation Centre in Abuja in the wee hours of Wednesday, INEC Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu declared Tinubu the winner.

Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, and Bola Tinubu of the New Nigeria Peoples Party were the other candidates in the race.

The three front-runners for president each won 12 states, although Kwankwaso only won Kano State.

Atiku, a former vice president and his closest rival, lost to Tinubu by a margin of no less than 1.8 million votes.

Tinubu ran for president for the first time in the 2023 presidential election. The former senator, who served as governor of Lagos State for two terms before leaving office in 2007, is credited with organizing the coalition that deposed the PDP in 2015. In recent years, he has expanded his influence outside of the South-West.

other contenders for the presidency of the country included Dumebi Kachikwu of the African Democratic Congress, Kola Abiola of the People’s Redemption Party, Omoyele Sowore of the Africa Action Congress, Adewole Adebayo of the Social Democratic Party, Malik Ado-Ibrahim of the Young Progressive Party, Prof. Christopher Imumulen of the Accord Party.

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Tinubu, in Borno, received 252,282 votes overall, according to a count of the votes made public by electoral officials from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. Atiku and Obi could only garner 190,921 votes and 7,205, respectively while Kwankwaso amassed 4,626 votes.

Tinubu received 231,591 votes from 23 LGAs in Rivers State, while the LP received 175, 071 votes and the PDP received 88, 468 votes.

Yet the Labour Party’s victory in the Federal Capital Territory turned out to be a game-changer, shocking both Tinubu and his PDP rival.

Due to his popularity in Abuja, Obi received 281,717 votes, while the former governor of Lagos and the former vice president tied for the remaining positions with 90,902 and 74,149 votes, respectively. Kwankwaso received 4,517 votes as well.

Nonetheless, Tinubu recovered from his setbacks in a few northern and middle belt states, including Zamfara, Kwara, Kogi, Benue, and Kogi States.

In Benue, the APC garnered 310,468 votes, knocking the LP (308,372), PDP (130,081), and NNPP (4,740) down to second, third, and fourth place, respectively.

In Zamfara State, he received 298.396 votes as opposed to 1,660 for the LP, 4,044 for the NNPP, and 193,978 for the PDP.

In Plateau, where he won by 466,272 votes over the APC’s 307,195, the PDP’s 243,808, and the NNPP’s 8,869, Obi performed as predicted, he outperformed the competition.

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Ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Kwara, Ekiti, Kogi, Benue, Zamfara, and Jigawa are among the states that Tinubu has so far won, while Atiku has triumphed in Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe, Kaduna, Kebbi, Bayelsa, Adamawa, and Akwa Ibom.

Obi, on the other hand, won the FCT as well as the states of Lagos, Enugu, Cross River, Nasarawa, Imo, Anambra, Abia, and Anambra.
APC received 8,794,726 votes in the final tally, compared to PDP’s 6,984,520, LP’s 6,101,533, and NNPP’s 1,496,687.

“That Tinubu Bola Ahmed of the APC, having satisfied the requirements of the law is hereby declared the winner and returned elected,” the INEC chief said in announcing Tinubu as the winner.