The much-awaited 2023 presidential election came to a close early Wednesday following the announcement of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the president-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, amid controversies and bereft of the razzmatazz and public display of joy.
Tinubu, according to INEC, polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who scored 6,984,520 votes. While Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) got 6,101,533 voted, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) trailed with 1,496,687 votes.
Preparatory to the last Saturday’s elections, there were high expectations on how the four leading presidential candidates would fare at the polls across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
There were also great optimism that with the deployment of technology, as promised and emphasised by the INEC and as encapsulated by the Electoral Act, Nigerians had expected a general election that would compare in integrity and fairness with the June 12, 1993 general elections supervised by Prof. Humphrey Nwosu.
While some of these expectations were met, there were also upsets that betrayed the projected results in some polling units, local government areas and states. Daily Trust chronicled some of such upsets, and we at Newsdesk Africa provided the additional ones.
*INEC fooled Nigerians twice on deployment of technology after collecting money for such
The Electoral Act provided in several of its provisions the introduction of use of electronic devices in the accreditation of voters and in the upload of election results from polling stations across the country to the INEC’s central server. Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu told Nigerians more than 100 times at various fora that the introduction of technology was sine qua none to the acceptance of the results of the election. Consequently, the commission introduced the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and iREV portal where uploaded results could be viewed real time by anybody anywhere in the country, provided the required Protocols were followed. INEC budgeted for this technology, the money was released to them. They told Nigerians they had purchased, trained the staff who would man such technology and had intact deployed that technology in readiness for the general election.
When certain Nigerians, including members of the National Assembly expressed doubts on INEC’s ability to deploy the technology, Prof. Yakubu put down his integrity, swearing that the technology will experience no encumbrances in any part of the country. He demonstrated the use of the technology in off-season elections in Amambra, Edo, Ekiti and Osun elections.
Prof. Yakubu had fooled Nigerians in 2019 on the deployment of technology as he failed to do so then. This time round, he made a heavy weather on the use of the technology, the masses doubted the integrity of his assurances. He deployed all forms of trick to convince the public that he will not fail. He abysmally failed to deploy same technology, even when he claimed it had been purchased and deployed.
And this stokes an idea which suggest that INEC may have carried out the several arson on its offices nationwide, claiming it was done by the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and some other faceless groups. This newspaper has no evidence that INEC could have engaged in arson, but what transpired on February 25 across the country, does not rule out such a possibility, just to give the impression that all is not well. We shall interrogate this aspect in another analysis.
*Obi defeated Buhari and his APC, and cleared polling units in Aso Rock
Peter Obi won in the nine polling units inside and around the Presidential Villa in Abuja with a total of 499 votes. Tinubu came second with 184 votes while Atiku got 142 votes. Ordinarily, many would have thought that Aso Rock, being the seat of power, would rub off on Tinubu, the candidate of the ruling party.
*Obi trounced Tinubu in his Bourdillon polling unit, his LG, and Lagos state
Contrary to expectation, Obi not only won in Ikeja LGA where Tinubu hails from, he also defeated the former Lagos State governor in his (Tinub’s) home state and stronghold. The development has put a slant in the political calculation in Lagos as Tinubu had been in firm control of the political structure of Nigeria’s commercial capital.
Obi secured 582,454 votes to defeat Tinubu, who scored 572, 606 votes. Atiku came third with 75,750 votes. Though Tinubu won in 11 out of 20 LGAs, Obi polled the highest votes and won in the remaining nine LGAs.
*Obi’s trounced APC National Chairman, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu in his Nasarawa state
Before the polls, Obi’s chances in the North were very slim or even written off. However, he not only had a considerable number of votes in some Northern states like Kaduna, but also won in Plateau and especially Nasarawa State.
In Nasarawa, Obi secured 191,361 votes to defeat Tinubu, who scored 172,922 votes while Atiku got 147,093 votes, according to the results declared by INEC collation officer in the state, Prof. Ishaya Tanko.
*Obi maintained the lead in Okowa’s Delta state
While it was predicted that Obi would have a good outing in the South South, some would have regarded Delta State as an exception, as the state governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, who was running mate to Atiku, wanted to win the state. That did not happen after all.
Obi won in Delta with 341,866 votes, beating Atiku who polled 161,600 votes, and Tinubu who got 90,183 votes.
*Atiku’s trounced Buhari in his Katsina state
Atiku won the election in President Muhammadu Buhari’s state, Katsina, securing a total of 489,045 votes to edge out Tinubu who polled 482,283 votes. This was as a big blow to the ruling APC as Governor Bello Masari is known to be very influential in the state.
The APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, lost his polling unit to the Labour Party, according to the results of the presidential election announced Saturday evening.
Labour Party’s Obi won in the polling unit with 132 votes while Tinubu of the APC came second with 85 votes.
*El-Rufai despite his boasts and high handedness lost his state and LGA
In another shocker of the polls, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State failed to deliver his LGA to APC in the presidential election.
In Zaria Local Government where he and Uba Sani, the APC governorship candidate in the March election hail from, Atiku won with 62,260 votes to defeat Tinubu who garnered 41,432 votes. While Kwankwaso of the NNPP came third with 8,729 votes, Obi trailed with 3,634 votes.
Overall, Atiku also won in Kaduna with 554,360 votes to beat Tinubu, who got 399,293 votes. Obi polled 294,494 votes to come third. Atiku won in 14 LGAs, Obi won in seven LGAs while Tinubu claimed only two LGAs.
*Obi, Atiku defeated by Tinubu in Rivers state
Considering the fallout between Wike and the PDP leadership, many expected that Obi would carry the day in Rivers State like he did in most Southsouth and Southeast states. But Tinubu sprang a surprise by winning the state, though it was claimed that Wike secretly worked for him. Tinubu polled a total of 231,591 votes to edge out Obi’s 175,071 votes while Atiku scored 88,468 votes.
Although the results declared by INEC had remained controversial, with the main opposition political parties walking out of the National Collation Centre in Abuja, how INEC permitted its staff to be so terribly humiliated at several Polling Units and Collation Centers across the country remains another issue to be interrogated another time. If a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member on national assignment like the conduct of elections gets molested and such a Corper fails to report such a molestation in writing to his supervisors upon return from such assignments, even if prevented from doing so to his or her INEC principal, then, such a Corper should be regarded as a threat to the nation and ought not be entrusted with any further public trust in his or her lifetime. Patriotism begins in what is considered as small assignments, but being selected to conduct an election is certainly not a joke. It is a huge national responsibility which should not be treated with levity.
