Election results trickle in as Tinubu sweeps Ekiti, Oyo, Atiku wins Osun, clears NASS seats

From: Obiora Ifoh, Abuja , Joseph Okwuofu, Ibadan, Blessing Akorowosi, Osogbo, Clement Nnachi (Abakaliki)

 

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, has won the presidential election in Ekiti  and Oyo State

The Independent National Electoral Commission State Collation Officer for the Saturday’s presidential poll in Ekitis State, Prof. Akeem Lasisi, who announced the result, said the APC candidate scored a total of 201,494 votes across the state to defeat candidates of other parties.

His closest rival, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, scored 89,554 votes while Labour Party’s candidate, Peter Obi  garnered 11,397 votes.

The New Nigerian Peoples Party’s candidate Rabiu Kwankwaso  polled 264 votes.

Lasisi, who is the Vice Chancellor of Federal University of Health Sciences, Ila Orangun, Osun State, announced the final result for Ekiti State after collating the results for the presidential election from the 16 local government areas.

The results from the 16 local government areas were presented by the Local Government Collation Officers for the different councils.

“Ekiti has a total of 988,923 registered voters, out of this, the number of accredited voters 315,058. Total valid votes, 308,171, the number of rejected votes 6,301 and total votes cast, 314,470. This is the final result of the presidential election in Ekiti State”, he said.

Also, The Independent National Electoral Commission, Oyo State has started the announcements of results of the Presidential elections across the local governments Council areas.

There are 33 local government areas in the state.

As at the time of filing this report, the results of 22 Council areas have been announced with the candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu taking an early lead.

The announcement holding at the Dr Mutiu Agboke Collation Centre of the INEC Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan is been presided over by the State Presiding Officer, Professor Babatunde Olushola who is the Acting Vice Chancellor, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.

Meanwhile, The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar was on Sunday declared winner in Osun State having polled 354,366 votes.

 

PDP was closely followed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu who polled 343,945.

 

Our correspondent reports that out of the total number of collected Permanent Voters Cards in Osun— 1,534,948, only 756,744 voted which is 49.3% of its eligible voters leaving out 778,204 persons— 50.7%

 

The results were announced by the returning officer, Vice Chancellor of University of Lagos State, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola at the the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), head office in Osogbo, Osun State capital.

 

Also, Our Correspondent reports that PDP won all the three senatorial districts and the nine federal constituencies in the National Assembly elections alongside the presidential election in Osun state.

The Presidential Candidate of Labour Party (LP) Mr Peter Obi, has won in Nine Local Government Areas so far declared in Ebonyi State by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC.

Announcing the results at the INEC Headquarters Abakaliki, the various Collation Officers declared Mr Obi winner in their various Local Government Areas.

The Local Governments whose results were declared include Afikpo North, Afikpo South, Ishielu, Ikwo, Ezza North, Ezza South, Izzi, Ebonyi and  Abakaliki respectively.

However, the Labour Party, LP, has called for the cancellation of the ongoing presidential election as the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, cannot upload results into its server from the polling units.

 

The national chairman of the party, Julius Abure made the call in a statement saying that INEC has given room for doubt in the credibility of the process.

Abure, said the inability of INEC to upload results after over 12 hours is worrisome and called it electoral robbery.

He said Labour Party is shocked by the revelations emanating from Rivers state after the presidential and national assembly elections which held on Saturday; where thugs believed to be agents of the state government invaded various polling units and collation centres, took away election materials including the results sheets, manipulated the BVAS machines and uploaded fake results in to the Central portal.

“We took particular note of incidences in places like Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo, Rumukoro and several other areas where Labour Party was clearly leading in virtually all the polling units with very wide margins.”

Abure also mentioned Lagos and Delta as some of the states where results are allegedly manipulated.

Also, the National Chairman of Labour Party (LP), Julius Abure has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to cancel elections in Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo, Rumukoro areas in Rivers.

Abure made the call in a statement he issued on Sunday in Abuja.

According to him, the leadership of the Labour Party is shocked by the revelations emanating from Rivers State after the presidential and national Assembly elections which held on Saturday.

Abure alleged that thugs invaded various polling units and collation centres, took away election materials including the results sheets.

He further alleged that the thugs manipulated the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines and uploaded fake results into the central portal.

 

“We took particular note of incidences in places like Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo, Rumukoro and several other areas where Labour Party was clearly leading in virtually all the polling units with very wide margins.

 

“Nigerians went into this election based on the assurances by INEC that the deployment of BVAS was a perfect antidote to electoral malpractices in Nigeria.

 

“But what transpired across Nigeria, if allowed to stand is purely a betrayal of trust of millions of Nigerians by INEC,” Abure said.

 

He alleged that INEC’s staff were intimidated by these thugs in connivance with military personnel and police officers who were deployed to protect them, into doing their bidding and were forced to manipulate the BVAS.

 

Abure alleged that some of these manipulations happened late in the night.

 

“We demand that INEC investigate these atrocities against Nigerian voters by the political class.

 

“We are therefore asking that INEC should rise to the occasion and cancel all the unverified and manipulated results arising from the presidential and national assembly elections in parts of Rivers State.

 

“Particularly in places like Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo and Rumukoro amongst others,’’ Abure said.

. Yakubu acknowledges challenges with the ‘INEC results viewing portal’ (IReV)

.Assure Nigerians of no  intrusion or sabotage of the  systems.

 

However, The Independent National Electoral Commission has acknowledged the challenges experienced with the INEC results viewing portal (IReV) , stressing that it  regrets the setback, especially because of the importance of IReV in  results management process.

In a statement signed by Festus Okoye Esq ,National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee,I NEC, he noted that  ‘’The Commission is aware of challenges with the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV). Unlike in off-season elections where the portal was used, it has been relatively slow and unsteady. The Commission regrets this setback, especially because of the importance of IReV in our results management process.

According to the body ,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 elections. 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.

 

Our technical team is working assiduously to solve all the outstanding problems, and users of the IReV would have noticed improvements since last night.

 

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.

 

While we fully appreciate the concerns of the public on this situation and welcome various suggestions that we have received from concerned Nigerians, it is important to avoid statements and actions that can heat up the polity at this time or promote disaffection towards the Commission.

 

We take full responsibility for the problems and regret the distress that they have caused the candidates, political parties and the electorate.

. Yiaga Africa tasks INEC on transparency

Yiaga Africa has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to protect the transparency of the result collation process by ensuring easy access to the collation centres for accredited observers and party agents.

Yiaga Africa said this at its Watching The Vote (WTV)’s Situational Press Statement on the   Saturday’s Presidential Election jointly signed by Hussaini Abdu, Chairman, WTV Working Group and Samson Itodo, Executive Director.

Reading the document, Abdu called on INEC to provide clear communication on locations where the General Election did not hold and ensure the process was concluded in those locations before returns were made.

“Yiaga Africa expressed concerns about the unexplained delay in uploading polling unit results for the presidential election on the INEC Election Results Viewing Portal (IReV).

“As of 10 p.m, on election day, results for the presidential election were not uploaded on the INEC portal after voting and counting ended in several polling units.

“At 9:00 am on Feb. 26 ,INEC uploaded only 25,503 results for the presidential election on the INEC portal.

“The delay in uploading the results undermines public confidence in the results transmission process as it deviates from the guidelines for the elections and it failed to meet citizens expectations,” he said.

 

Abdu said that the failure of the IReV system, intended to enhance transparency, undermined public confidence in the process.

He said INEC should make publicly available all the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS ) accreditation data by polling unit, including the number of voters accredited by finger vs facial recognition.

He called on INEC to also protect the transparency of the result collation process by ensuring accredited observers and party agents were granted access to the collation centers.

Abdu called on INEC to strictly adhere to the provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act and INEC regulations and guidelines on the collation of results.

As provided in Section 64 of the Act, collation officers and returning officers are required to compare the number of accredited voters and election results recorded on the hardcopy result sheet and scanned images on the BVAS.

 

“Yiaga Africa calls on INEC and security to ensure proper security for citizens especially the polling officials and collation officials as results collation progresses as INEC commences the announcement of results to ensure that no life is further lost in this elections,” he said.

 

Abdu said that Yiaga Africa deployed 3,836 observers throughout the country including 3,014 parallel vote tabulation (PVT) observers for the General Elections.

 

He said that the PVT methodology was also deployed to enable Yiaga Africa to independently assess the quality of the process and verify the accuracy of the official presidential election results announced by INEC.

 

“At this time, Yiaga Africa is able to provide preliminary statistically accurate data on the conduct of the election as of Feb.25 – from the opening of polling units through accreditation, voting and counting until the posting of results.

 

“If INEC’s results fall within Yiaga Africa’s estimated ranges, then the public, political parties and candidates should have confidence the official results reflect the ballots cast at the polling units.

 

“However, if the official results are manipulated at any point in the process we will be able to expose it, although only INEC has the legal mandate to announce the election results,” he said.

. Concerns mount over slow upload of results

A Coalition of Civil Society Organisations has expressed worry over the slow upload of the Presidential and National Assembly election results.

Mr Hamzat Lawal, Chief Executive, Connected Development (CODE)who spoke on behalf of the Civil Society Organisations on Sunday in Abuja, said that at the INEC result portal currently has only results for 40,000 polling units.

Lawal said  “this is most disturbing as we are aware that INEC created over 50,000 new polling units with less than 100 registered voters in each of them.

“This is even as elections have since been concluded in most of these polling units at 2:30p.m., yesterday.

“One would expect that by midnight of yesterday, all this polling units results should have been uploaded.

“This expectation is coming from the experience we observed in the Ekiti and Osun Gubernatorial elections, where we witnessed over 95 per cent of the results uploaded before midnight on election day.”

He said that the CSOs were forwarding to INEC some of the reports they were got from the field.

Lawal said that with 20,000 community-driven observers on the ground, CODE and its partners using the Electoral Intelligence tool, Uzabe, noticed a worrisome trend across the nation .

He said that these pointed to the gaps and unpreparedness within the structure of the electoral process and which threaten the credibility of this election.

The coalition said that there were several reports which indicated that in states like Ekiti, Cross River, Imo, and Rivers, INEC had their Local Government Area (LGA) collation centers relocated without adequate information to stakeholders.

“In Ekiti especially, we have it on good authority that all LGA collation centres were relocated, and in most cases, accredited observers were outrightly denied access to were results were being collated.

“This happened in Oru East, Imo State, where our observers confirmed that no election was held and in fact, some voters were asked to vote in a private residential building of a party chieftain, which is clearly against INEC guidelines and the electoral act.

” Yet we have results from that LGA. This is an indictment on INEC and all that our constitution stands for,” the group said.

Lawal said that CODE and its partners  call on INEC to indeed be independent and serve the people what the constitution has mandated it to serve.

“Therefore we are calling on INEC to address these issues immediately. We are also calling on the Nigerian police as the lead agency on election security to monitor,” he said

A Coalition of Civil Society Organisations has expressed worry over the slow upload of the Presidential and National Assembly election results.

Mr Hamzat Lawal, Chief Executive, Connected Development (CODE)who spoke on behalf of the Civil Society Organisations on Sunday in Abuja, said that at the INEC result portal currently has only results for 40,000 polling units.

Lawal said  “this is most disturbing as we are aware that INEC created over 50,000 new polling units with less than 100 registered voters in each of them.

“This is even as elections have since been concluded in most of these polling units at 2:30p.m., yesterday.

“One would expect that by midnight of yesterday, all this polling units results should have been uploaded.

“This expectation is coming from the experience we observed in the Ekiti and Osun Gubernatorial elections, where we witnessed over 95 per cent of the results uploaded before midnight on election day.”

He said that the CSOs were forwarding to INEC some of the reports they were got from the field.

Lawal said that with 20,000 community-driven observers on the ground, CODE and its partners using the Electoral Intelligence tool, Uzabe, noticed a worrisome trend across the nation .

He said that these pointed to the gaps and unpreparedness within the structure of the electoral process and which threaten the credibility of this election.

The coalition said that there were several reports which indicated that in states like Ekiti, Cross River, Imo, and Rivers, INEC had their Local Government Area (LGA) collation centers relocated without adequate information to stakeholders.

“In Ekiti especially, we have it on good authority that all LGA collation centres were relocated, and in most cases, accredited observers were outrightly denied access to were results were being collated.

“This happened in Oru East, Imo State, where our observers confirmed that no election was held and in fact, some voters were asked to vote in a private residential building of a party chieftain, which is clearly against INEC guidelines and the electoral act.

” Yet we have results from that LGA. This is an indictment on INEC and all that our constitution stands for,” the group said.

Lawal said that CODE and its partners  call on INEC to indeed be independent and serve the people what the constitution has mandated it to serve.

“Therefore we are calling on INEC to address these issues immediately. We are also calling on the Nigerian police as the lead agency on election security to monitor,” he said

 

.Police warns against circulating unofficial results

 

The Nigeria Police Force has warned Nigerians against spreading news of election results not announced by INEC.

Force spokesman CSP Olumuyiwa Adejobi issued the warning in a statement on Sunday, in reaction to the alleged spreading of fake INEC results of elections on social media by members of the public.

The police, therefore, urged Nigerians to instead, wait for the official results of the Presidential and National Assembly Elections to be announced by INEC.

According to him, the police consider the spread of news about election results not announced by INEC as a calculated attempt to heat up the polity and possibly create post-elections chaos.

“We have observed the spreading or circulation of alleged/fake election results on social media and other news platforms, which is contrary to the policy and guidelines of INEC.

“We regard this as a disservice, unpatriotic, and disinformation.

“The Nigeria Police hereby warns those who are spreading these alleged/fake election results to desist from such mischievous acts and wait patiently for INEC’s official results, which are authentic and tenable,” he said.

He urged Nigerians to remain calm, and go about their lawful engagements, while those billed to go on election duty today (Sunday) should be orderly.

“You should be law-abiding as we have re-enforced our security strategies for the smooth conclusion of the 2023 General Elections,” he said.

. Senate spokesman, Bashiru loses  in Ekiti

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Osun Central Senatorial Candidate and Senate spokesperson, Senator Ajibola Basiru lost in the just concluded election.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olubiyi Fadeyi was declared winner of the election having polled 134,229 votes to defeat Bashiru who had 117,609 votes.

The results were announced by Prof Ibraheem Usman, the collation officer for Osun Central Senatorial District in Osogbo on Sunday.

 

The result showed that Labour Party candidate, Oyebode Babalola polled 2,292 votes.

 

Also for Osogbo Federal Constituency, PDP’s Monruf Adewale with 71,677 votes was returned elected, defeating Abosede Kasumu of the APC, who had 58,992 votes.

 

Moreso, in Ife Federal constituency, Hon. Taofeek Ajilesoro of the PDP was declared winner and returned.

 

Ajilesoro polled 53,078 votes while APC’s Engr Benjamin Adereti got 51,051.

 

The Returning Officer, Prof Abdulfatai Makinde, announced the result at Ife Central Collation centre at Oluorogbo Middle School 1, Road 7, on Sunday, in Ile-Ife.