Tension is palpably high across the country as Nigerians await results of the presidential and the national assembly elections, over 24 hours after time was called in on the exercise.
But the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has assured the Nigerian people that the process of collation and announcement would be transparent, even as INEC has explained that the challenges the commission was encountering with the transmission of results was not due to sabotage of its system.
At the same time, INEC, yesterday, announced the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, as the winner of the presidential election in Ekiti State, after polling 201,494 votes, to defeat his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who scored 89,554 votes.
However, Atiku Abubakar returned that favour by defeating Tinubu in Katsina State, the President's home state, though by a small margin. The former vice president polled 489,045 votes while Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), scored 482,283 votes.
The INEC state Collation Officer and Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Gusau, Zamfara State, Mu'azu Abubakar, announced the result at a Collation Centre in Katsina, Monday morning.
This, nonetheless, INEC has conducted election into the remaining 141 polling units in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State the presidential and national assembly elections were rescheduled, just as more and more results in the presidential and legislative elections had started to come in.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has weighed in on the controversies trailing weekend's presidential and national assembly elections in some states, cautioning the INEC and security agencies against colluding to subvert people's will.
Yakubu, who allayed fears of manipulation, said during one of his briefings yesterday, that everything concerning the collation of the results and announcement would be done that in the open at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.
However, INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, in a statement said the Commission was aware of challenges with the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV).
The commission noted that unlike in the off-season elections, where the portal was used, it has been relatively slow and unsteady, stressing that the Commission regretted the setback, especially, because of the importance of IReV in its results management process.
"The problem is totally due to technical hitches related to scaling up the IReV from a platform for managing off-season, state elections, to one for managing nationwide general election. It is indeed not unusual for glitches to occur and be corrected in such situations.
"Consequently, the Commission wishes to assure Nigerians that the challenges are not due to any intrusion or sabotage of our systems, and that the IReV remains well-secured," he said.
While further assuring the people that its technical team was working assiduously to solve all the outstanding problems, he added that the users of the IReV would have noticed improvements since last night.
His words: "We also wish to assure Nigerians that results from the Polling Units, copies of which were issued to political parties, are safe on both the BVAS and the IReV portal.
"These results cannot be tampered with and any discrepancy between them and the physical results used in collation will be thoroughly investigated and remediated, in line with Section 65 of the Electoral Act 2022."
The commission said while it fully appreciated the concerns of the public on this situation and welcomed various suggestions that it had received from concerned Nigerians, it was important to avoid statements and actions that could heat up the polity at this time or promote disaffection towards the Commission.
The commission, therefore, accepted full responsibility for the problems and regretted the distress they might have caused the candidates, political parties and the electorate.
Atiku Wins Buhari's State with 489,045 Votes
In the early hours of this morning, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, was declared the winner of the Saturday's presidential election in Katsina state.
The former vice president polled 489,045 votes to defeat his closest rival, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), who scored 482,283 votes.
Peter Obi of the Labour Party scored 6,376 while Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party polled 69,386 votes.
Tinubu Wins Ekiti as Collation Continues Today
Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has declared the winner of the presidential election in Ekiti State.
This is as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said the collation of results would continue at 11am today because most of the states were expected to have completed the collation of results last night.
The State Collation Officer for the Ekiti State, Prof. Akeem Lasisi, said APC scored a total of 201,494 votes, while Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 89,554 votes. The Labour Party's candidate, Peter Obi, on the other hand, garnered 11,397 votes and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) polled 264 votes.
Lasisi, who said Ekiti had a total of 988,923 registered voters, while the number of accredited voters were 315,058, added that, the total valid votes was 308,171, while number of rejected stood at 6,301 and total votes cast, 314,472.
Kwankwaso Leads in 25 Kano LGAs
Presidential Candidate of the New Nigeria People's Party (NNPP), Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has taken a lead over other presidential candidates in the 25 local government areas of Kano State, going by the results so far announced by the INEC while the APC has won four LGAs. .
In a related development, candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu, was reportedly leading in 18 out of the 29 local governments so far declared in Katsina, while the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has 11 to his credit. There are five more local governments to go.
At the time of filing this report, collation of results were still on-going at INEC office, Kano, while the state remained calm and peaceful.
But there were indications that the total results for Kano might not be ready till today, Monday.
Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, lost his local government area to Kwankwaso.
Ganduje is from Ganduje village in Dawakin Tofa local government area of the state.
From the results announced by the returning officer, Adamu Jibril, APC scored 16,773 votes while NNPP scored 25,072 votes. PDP scored 2,477 votes and Labour got 202 votes.
Also, Nasiru Sule Garo, the House of Representatives Candidate for Gwarzo/ Kabo Federal Constituency on the platform of New Nigeria People's Party, has rejected the results of his constituency over alleged over voting.
Addressing a news conference, Garo said his decision to reject the results was based on the physical evidence of massive collaboration with state government, INEC officials and security agents in carrying out the electoral malpractice.
Obi Wins Three Out of Seven LGAs in Enugu
Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has won three local governments out of the seventeen local governments announced so far in Enugu State.
Obi was declared winner of the polls in Enugu South and Nkanu East LGs at the INEC collation centre in the state.
At Nkanu East, the LP candidate polled a total of 11,746 votes while the PDP scored 1430. The APC got 96 votes.
At Enugu South, the LP got a total of 38,511 votes while the PDP got 336 votes and the APC scored 194 votes. Out of a total of 178,654 registered voters, only 40, 347 voters were accredited.
In Aniniri LG, the LP candidate scored a total of 11,339 votes while the PDP scored 395 votes and APC 64. There were a total of 79,917 registered voters.
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NLC Warns INEC, Security against Subverting People's Will
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has weighed in on the controversies trailing weekend's presidential and National Assembly elections in some states, and cautioned the INEC and security agencies against colluding to subvert the people's will.
Addressing alleged complicity by INEC officials to scuttle the election and unleash violence, NLC urged President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately call the leadership of the commission to order.
In a statement by the NLC President, Comrade Joe Ajaero, the labour movement asked INEC to reject election results from Lagos State following reluctance by the Resident Electoral Officer in charge to transmit the BVAS reports for the presidential election to the official INEC Servers.
NLC said the commission should not only reject the result but ensure that those responsible be prosecuted.
"This is completely unacceptable and we want INEC to ensure that any cooked result from any REC is not only rejected but the offenders be made to face the full weight of the law.
"INEC must understand that not uploading the results to its Server expeditiously as expected creates avoidable crisis of confidence and imperils the entire process. We continue to express our deep concerns over the apparent manipulation of results in Lagos and Rivers States and demand that the real results as captured by the BVAS be uploaded without fail," Labour stated.
In the statement titled: "Is INEC subverting Nigeria?", NLC said it, "feels compelled to warn INEC and the Security agencies of the dangers of subverting the sovereign will. We warn INEC and others not to allow this election to degenerate into a national security crisis.
"This is avoidable and it is only by allowing the sovereign will prevail that we can guarantee national peace. The belief that it is going to be business as usual should be discountenanced as the tension since after the casting of votes should be enough signal to anybody planning a heist of the vote," it said.
NLC said the commission must be seen as above board and acting within the ambits of the law and its guidelines.
