Bola Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State and the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has been declared the winner of the 2023 Presidential Election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The election was held across all 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, on Saturday, with a total of 18 presidential candidates vying for the position.
Despite some logistical challenges, including violence, theft of BVAS and other issues, the results were collated at state INEC collation centres, and the election was postponed till Sunday in some polling units in different states.
After the collation of results, state collation officers for the presidential election (SCOPs) presented the outcome to the INEC chairman, Yakubu Mahmood, at the National Collation Centre.
Mahmood announced that Tinubu had won the election with the majority of votes cast in all 36 states of Nigeria and the FCT. The APC candidate polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who polled 6,984,520 votes. Peter Obi of the Labour Party came third with 6,101,533 votes, while the candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, had 1,496,687 votes.
Tinubu, Obi, and Atiku won 12 states each, while Kwankwaso won only Kano State. Tinubu won in Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Kwara, Benue, Rivers, Borno, Zamfara, Jigawa, Ondo, Kogi, and Niger State. Atiku of the PDP won in Taraba, Osun, Akwa Ibom, Adamawa, Kaduna, Sokoto, Yobe, Bayelsa, Kebbi, Bauchi, Gombe, and Katsina. Meanwhile, Obi won the following states; Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Anambra, Abia, Delta, Edo, FCT, Plateau, Nasarawa, Lagos, and Cross River.
With the declaration of the winner, Nigerians now look forward to the inauguration of Bola Tinubu as the President of Nigeria on May 29, 2023.