INEC Declares APC Candidate, Bola “Emi lo kan” Tinubu, as Nigeria’s President-Elect

A long and uncomfortable wait was finally put to an end in the early hours of Wednesday morning as INEC announced APC’s candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Nigeria’s president-elect.

This announcement came as a result of Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election.

The 2023 Nigeria Presidential Election

The 2023 Nigerian Presidential Election which held on February 25th 2023 was a heavily anticipated one. With the country facing fuel and money scarcity issues, the citizens eagerly awaited the chance to usher in a government. Unfortunately, it was apparently the lowest voter turnout since elections began in Nigeria in 1999.

Regardless, over 10 million Nigerians registered to vote for the first time. And even though they didn’t all show up, a great number of them queued expectantly at their polling units that Saturday morning.

With the inclusion of the new Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS) and the Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV), the Nigerian Electoral Commission (INEC) seemed to be on its way to improving the weakness in Nigeria’s voting system. Unfortunately, Election Day did not go smoothly.

There were reports of polling units being raided, ballot boxes being snatched or burned and people’s lives endangered by political party thugs. INEC may have improved their process but it did nothing to ensure the safety of its officials and the voters.

Thankfully chaos was not the order of the day all over the nation as a large number of other polling units recorded a safe voting process.

The Key Players in The Nigeria Presidential Election

Pre-election polls indicated Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of the reigning All Progressives Congress (APC), would face a close race; with Atiku Abubakar, of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) the main opposition party, Peter Obi, who had the youth support in the Labour Party (LP), and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples’ Party (NNPP) who seemed to have large Northern support.

Vote Collation For Nigeria’s Next President

The vote collation was a rough three days, with issues with the IReV portal making it unable for INEC to load results, issues over voting in some areas and voting being extended in certain polling units due to problems with the BVAS. These incidents were set to affect the overall credibility of the final results.

As expected, people began expressing vocally on social media and to the press, concerns that INEC was rigging the election in favour of the APC’s candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

By day two, members of the LP and PDP cried foul as well. They commenced moves to take INEC and its chairman Mahmood Yakubu to court due to his alleged biases in favour of the APC. The two parties even held a joint press conference to express their dissatisfaction with the electoral process so far. This sparked speculation that the two parties would join forces.

Tinubu also made his own move against them, motioning the court to end their mission of stopping the collation of the election results.

INEC responded with an assurance that the polls would be reviewed where necessary in accordance with Section 65 of the electoral act. The Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) also threw its weight behind INEC, stating that the coalition should continue regardless of public misgivings.

INEC Announced The Winner To The 2023 Nigeria Presidential Election

It was in the early hours of Wednesday morning, March 1st that INEC declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress as the winner of the Nigerian 2023 elections. Prof. Mahmood Yakubu made this announcement at approximately 4:10 am.

But even after the announcement, criticisms of the electoral process continue to arise. Since the announcement, no direct action has been taken against the presiden-elect. We just have to wait and see how the next few days unfold.

All images are sourced from twitter