Breaking – Official: INEC declares Buhari winner of 2019 Presidential election *Read full results

President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been declared winner of Saturday’s presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

He polled a total of 15,191,847 votes across the 36 states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory.

Buhari defeated his closest rival and Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate (PDP), Atiku Abubakar in 19 states and secured the mandatory 25 per cent in over two third of the states.The PDP’s standard bearer lost in the contest despite winning in 18 states and polling 11,262,978 votes cast in his favour.

The figures emerged at the end of the collation exercise which ran through Tuesday and ended in the early hours of Wednesday.

But the PDP insisted it was robbed by the ruling APC as the smart card readers were compromised in some states, saying some of its votes were arbitrarily nullified by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The collation exercise ended with results from Rivers which was won by the PDP.

However, the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu told the gathering at about 12.15am that the session would resume at 3.00am to finalise the process of announcing the eventual winner.  

Prior to that time, APC party agent, Festus Keyamo, SAN, had said the party was robbed of 78,000 votes by the collation officer in Rivers state and asked that the anomalies be “addressed now or noted for action by the commission.”

But the INEC chairman said the issue of Rivers would be looked into within the confine of the law and addressed, even as he pleaded with all stakeholders to allow the process leading to the final stage of the collation exercise run to its logical conclusion.  

Collation on Day 2   

A breakdown of the figures showed that Niger state was won by the APC with 612,371 votes as against 218, 052 votes cast for PDP.

 There were 2,375,568 registered voters across the 15 local government areas with 911,964 voters accredited, while total votes cast were put at 896,976, 851,937 valid votes, 45 rejected votes and 71,200 cancelled. 

In Jigawa state, Buhari scored 794,738 against Atiku’s 289,895 votes.

Jigawa, a state with  27 LGAs, has 2 ,104,889 registered voter population out of  which 1,171,801 were accredited  while the state  recorded  1,149,922 as total votes cast.

The recorded valid votes for Jigawa were 1,106,244 while 43,678 votes were rejected. 

Similarly, the APC won Kaduna state with 993,445 votes as against PDP’s 640, 612.

Atiku fought back in Anambra state winning 524,738 votes as against APC’s 33,298. 

He also had a slim victory in Oyo state with PDP scoring 366,690 as against 365,229 for APC.

Adamawa also went into the bag of PDP candidate who hails from that state, winning with 410,266 votes as against Buhari’s 378,078 votes. 

Adamawa with 21 LGAs had 1,959,322 registered voter population with only 874,920 accredited voters.

The total valid votes stood at 811,534 while rejected votes were 49,222, giving a total of 860,756.

In Bauchi state, the APC polled 798,428 votes while PDP scored 209,313.

The valid votes were 1,024, 307, 37,648 votes rejected and total votes cast put at1, 061, 955.

APC also won Lagos, polling 580,825 as against the opposition’s 448,015.

The ruling party also followed with victory in Ogun state where it scored 281,762 as against PDP’s 194, 655.  The registered number of voters for Ogun state was 2,336,887 while 613,399 voters were accredited and total votes cast stood at 605,938.

And in Edo, a state with 18 local government areas and 2,150,127 registered voters, the PDP polled 275, 691 votes with APC’s Buhari scoring 267,842 votes.

Accredited voters for the poll were 604,915 while total valid votes stood at 560,711, and 38, 517 as rejected votes, all totalling 599, 228.

The number of cancellation which was carried out in 48 polling units was 42,176.

Also in Benue state, Atiku pulled a narrow victory over the ruling party with a figure of 356,817 as against APC’s 347,668. 

Benue, which has a voter populations of 2, 391,276 had a 763,872 as total votes cast, while the valid votes were 728,912.

The rejected votes were 34,960 while 122,989 votes were cancelled in 172 polling units.

The winning streak continued for the PDP in Imo where its candidate scored 334,923 votes as against APC’s 140,463.

The state had 2,037,569 registered voters while 585,741 were accredited to vote.

The valid votes were put at 511,586 while 31,191 votes were rejected. Hence, the total votes cast were 542,777 while 63,048 votes were cancelled in 97 polling units in twelve LGAs.

It was the same success story for PDP in Plateau state where the party scored 548,665 while the APC scored 468,555.

The registered voter population was 2,423, 381 while accredited voters for the election were 1,074,042. The state had total valid votes of 1,034,853 and the total votes cast were 1,063,862, with 28,009 rejected.

But the PDP’s winning machine was stopped in Kano state where Buhari scored 1,464,768 against Atiku’s 392,593 votes.

Kano, with a total registered voter population of 5,381,581 only second to Lagos, recorded the highest turnout with 2,006,410 accredited voters.

The total votes cast were 1,964,751 while valid votes stood at 1,891,134. With a total of 73,617 reject votes, the state had 43,900 of the votes cancelled across 69 polling units.

Katsina, home state of APC standard bearer, also went the way of Buhari, who scored 1,232,133 against Atiku’s 308,056.

The state had a total registered voters of 3,219,422 out of which 1,628,865 were accredited for the election. 1,555,473 votes were recorded as valid, 63,712 rejected and the cancelled votes were put at 12,027. 

And the pendulum swung again in favour of the PDP in Taraba with the candidate garnering 374,743 votes as against APC’s 326 996 votes, out of the registered voters of 1,777,105.

The accredited figure was put at 756 111, 712 877 valid votes recorded while the rejected votes were 28,687 and the total votes cast were 741,564. 

Votes were cancelled at seven polling units across 12 LGAs, which affected 45,066 voters.

PDP rejects result

Prior to the conclusion of the collation, the PDP had called for stoppage of the exercise by the INEC until data from the smart card reader accreditation at the polling units were made available to all parties.

Deputy Director General (Admin) and Director Legal of PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Tanimu Turaki, SAN, said this  while briefing journalists Tuesday in Abuja.

He said the card readers would reveal all manipulation allegedly done by the APC.

Turaki said: “PDP predicates its demand on available evidence to the effect that data from the card readers are being reconfigured to suit the manipulations, rigging and over-voting already carried out during the election in some states by the All Progressives Congress (APC).”

One of the party’s spokespersons, Osita Chidoka had at the venue of the collation centres raised similar concerns.

 He said the PDP National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus had communicated this position INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu.

Turaki said: “We have evidence from the smart card reader accreditation data that what is being announced by INEC has been seriously tampered with and manipulated.

“In the meantime, we demand the immediate and outright cancellation of presidential election results in Yobe, Zamfara, Nasarawa and Borno states as submitted by INEC presiding officers and ask for the conduct of fresh elections in these states.

“In Yobe, the total number of votes submitted as cast was more than the number of accredited voters. Whereas the number of accredited voters was 601, 056, the total votes cast was 775, 449. 

 “This is a clear case of over-voting which, by the provisions of the Electoral Act, renders the election null and void. In such instance, the law provides for another election on a day to be fixed by INEC.

“In Zamfara state, no actual voting took place and there was no single result sheet in any polling unit in the entire state. There was an arrest in Shinkafi local government, where an APC member was caught thumb printing ballot papers inside his house”. 

He said both the APC and INEC concocted and allocated results according to the wishes of the leadership of the APC and its candidate.

Turaki, who also called for outright deletion of the results from Zamfara said:  “In Borno state, there was no election but a figure writing exercise and allocation of results according to the whims and caprices of the APC leaders. We also demand the outright deletion of the results from Borno from INEC records and a conduct of free, fair and credible presidential election in Borno state.

 “In Nasarawa, the PDP demands the immediate restoration of our over 157, 000 lawful and valid votes which were unlawfully and arbitrarily cancelled by INEC and the announcement of the actual results from the field.”

“Similarly, the PDP demands an immediate restoration of our over 79, 000 valid votes which were unlawfully cancelled by INEC in Kogi state and the announcement of the authentic results inclusive of the restored 79,000 votes

“In the FCT, the PDP demands the restoration of 27,000 valid votes unlawfully and arbitrarily cancelled by INEC and a declaration of the authentic result, inclusive of our restored 27,000 votes.

“In Plateau, the PDP demands the immediate restoration of our over 30,000 lawful and valid votes, which were unlawfully cancelled, particularly in Jos North and the declaration of the genuine results as delivered at the polling units inclusive of our 30,000 restored votes.”

He called on Nigerians to disregard the results until INEC provides the data from the smart card reader accreditation at the polling units conducts fresh election in Borno, Yobe and Zamfara states as well as restore our votes in Plateau, FCT, Kogi and Nasarawa states.

APC, PDP assemble legal teams

Meanwhile, ahead of possible legal battles between the APC and PDP, the ruling party has called for a meeting of its legal team to hold Wednesday (today) in Abuja.

It was also learnt that the main opposition PDP Monday had held a secret meeting with its legal team to identify all the loopholes during the presidential election.

Blueprint exclusively gathered that the legal directorate of the APC presidential campaign council sent out the notice of an emergency meeting Tuesday.

The venue of the meeting, sources said, is the campaign office at Herbert Macaulay Way, CBD, Abuja.

It was further gathered that the party mandated the deputy director legal of the campaign council, Professor  Mamman Lawan Yusufari, to immediately convene the emergency meeting.

 “The meeting will discuss crucial issues pertaining to the 2019 presidential election and prepare for any likely legal issues arising there from.” 

The message sent to members of the team read: “Members of the legal directorate of the APC presidential campaign council are hereby invited to an emergency meeting of the Directorate on Wednesday 27 February 2019 at 4pm.

“The directorate is to discuss crucial issues pertaining to the 2019 presidential election and prepare for any likely legal issues arising there from.”

State by states results