(From left): INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu presenting the CoR to Asiwaju Tinubu of the APC as the wife, Senator Remi Tinubu watches, at the presentation ceremony in Abuja
Despite opposition’s rejection, APC asks Atiku, Obi, others to accept defeat, as INEC presents CoR to Tinubu
All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council (APC/PCC) has urged candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, to accept defeat and congratulate the newly-announced president-elect, Bola Tinubu.
The Council’s Media Adviser, Dele Alake, said this while condemning the LP and PDP for calling for the cancellation of the presidential election.
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had, Wednesday morning, declared the APC candidate, Asiwaju Tinubu as winner of the February 25 Presidential elections after polling the highest polling 8,794,726 votes to defeat fellow contenders – Atiku Abubakar of the opposition PDP, who polled 6,984,520 votes, Labour Party’s Peter Obi had 6,101,533 votes to come third and candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) Rabiu Kwankwaso with 1,496,687 votes.
Of the 36 states and FCT, Tinubu, Obi, and Atiku won 12 states each while Kwankwaso won only Kano State.
The 12 states won by Tinubu include; Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Kwara, Benue, Rivers, Borno, Zamfara, Jigawa, Ondo, Kogi and Niger State.
Atiku of the PDP won Taraba, Osun, Akwa Ibom, Adamawa, Kaduna, Sokoto, Yobe, Bayelsa, Kebbi, Bauchi, Gombe and Katsina.
LP’s Obi won the following states; Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Anambra, Abia, Delta, Edo, FCT, Plateau, Nasarawa, Lagos and Cross River.
However, since the commencement of collation of results, most of the opposition parties have rejected the exercise, a call joined by some stakeholders in the polity, including former heads of state in the country, as well as international elections observer groups.
Reacting to the Tinubu’s announcement as President-elect, the APC Council called on other parties’ candidates to accept the outcome of the elections.
“This election has already been won by our candidate, according to the result declared by the collation centres in the states. In 2015, President Jonathan did not wait for INEC to finish collation before he called President Buhari in the true spirit of democracy and sportsmanship.
“We urge Abubakar and Obi to follow the same path of honour instead of heating the polity with reckless statements by surrogates. Let Atiku and Obi do the needful, the necessary thing and save Nigeria by calling Tinubu now and conceding defeat,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, INEC, Wednesday, presented a Certificate of Returns (CoR) to the APC candidate, Tinubu, in Abuja.
INEC, had Wednesday, declared Tinubu as President-elect after the latter secured the highest number of votes cast in the Presidential election, last Saturday, February 25.
The Certificate was presented to the APC candidate by the Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu.
