INEC declares Tinubu President-Elect
Sopuruchi Onwuka
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the All Progressive Congress (APC) winner in the controversial national polls for federal political offices in the country, positioning Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the President-Elect of Nigeria.
According to highly discredited results published by INEC, contested by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP) and African Democratic Congress (CDC), and also criticized by all election observations missions in the country; the ruling APC polled 8,794,726 votes in 12 states to win the election.
INEC allotted 6,984,520 votes to the PDP in 12 states; 6,101,533 votes to LP in 12 states and the election’s single largest block votes of 1,496,687 to the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) in one state.
About 90 million voters were eligible and higher number of total votes were expected despite destruction of ballot materials by political thugs across the southern states.
The election which pooled the country’s largest voter turnout did not reflect the number in the results which observers contend are doctored by the ruling party and the INEC to deliver a favoured candidate.
President Muhammadu Buahri had at a meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, said he would advise his successor “from my party” on aviation pact with the Ethiopian Airlines. The comment was criticized as a pointer to pre-determination of the subsequent elections.
He also displayed his vote for APC in a move also criticized as a call for vote against other candidates.
The Chairman of the INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, who abandoned technology platforms for credible transmission of results and resorted to the vulnerable manual handling of poll outcomes, is appointed by President Buhari.
Prof Mahmood had declined calls on him to step aside when it became clear that that figures at the INEC’s national collation center were totally different from numbers party agents signed at the polling units.
Expectedly, the PDP, ADC and LP have rejected the results and walked out on the process, paving the way for INEC to proceed with declaration of the disputed results in the wee hours of Wednesday.
Tinubu, “having satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected”, Mahmood Yakubu announced.
“This is a serious mandate. I hereby accept it: to serve you, to work with you and make Nigeria great,” he pledged.
“I appeal to my fellow contestants to let us team together. It is the only nation we have. It is one country that we must build together,” he appealed.
Tinubu, national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), had been confident of winning the election even after losing the highly populated Lagos home base to the candidate of the LP, Mr Peter Obi whose entry into the race altered all Nigeria’s election traditions in terms of acceptability.
Tinubu has a rich political pedigree. His became a senator in 1992, became a governor in 1999, forged a political merger with Muhammadu Buahri to form the ll Progressives Congress (APC) that toppled ruling PDP in the 2015 polls.
But contest lies ahead probably in the courts where PDP and LP are going to advance credible and convincing evidences of large scale rigging in the election that produced Tinubu as President-Elect.
