Nigeria’s electoral umpire declares Bola Ahmed Tinubu of ruling party winner of Saturday’s presidential election

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the candidate of Nigeria’s ruling party, All Progressives Congress, APC, as the winner of Saturday’s presidential election after days of collation of results.

Mr Tinubu scored a total of 8,794,726 votes, the highest of all the candidates, to meet the first constitutional requirement to be declared the winner.

Nigeria’s president-elect also scored over 25 percent of the votes cast in 30 states, more than the 24 states constitutionally required.

Some of the key states won include Rivers, Borno, Jigawa, Zamfara, Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo and Ogun states.

The Chairman of the electoral commission, Mahmood Yakubu, a professor, who announced the final results in the early hours of Wednesday in Abuja, said Atiku Abubakar of the PDP came second in the election, having polled a total of 6,984,520 votes in the election.

While Peter Obi of the Labour Party came third in the election with a total of 6,101,533 votes while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP came fourth with 1,496,687 votes.

A Certificate of Return for the President and Vice President, according to the electoral umpire, will be presented by 3pm Nigeria time on Wednesday at the National Collation Centre, in Abuja, the capital.

The new president will be inaugurated on 29 May 2023, the former date of Democracy Day.