Presidential poll: INEC concludes results collation, Tinubu leads with 8.8m votes, may be declared winner today

• Tinubu (APC): 8,805,420 votes, won 12 states
• Atiku (PDP): 6,984,290 votes, won 12 states
• Obi (LP): 6,093,962 votes, won 12 states

The Independent National Electoral Commission may today, March 1, declare presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, winner of the 2023 presidential election conducted last Saturday having scored a total of 8,805,420 votes.
This follows the announcement on Tuesday night of the last set of votes from states by INEC state collation officers of the presidential election at the national collation centre in Abuja showing Tinubu leading his closest challenger, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, with over 1.8 million votes.
Atiku received 6,984,290 votes while Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, was third with 6,093,962 votes.
All the three candidates won in 12 states each.
Meanwhile, the issue of winning the Federal Capital Territory has been clarified as not a stand-alone requirement to emerge as Nigeria’s president.
Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, said this on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily Tuesday evening.
He said, “It is not a requirement that you must win the FCT. The courts have ruled that pursuant to Section 299 of the constitution, that the FCT should be treated as a state. That is the law.
“You don’t have to win the FCT. If you meet the requirement; that is two-thirds of the majority of states in the country. You don’t have to win the FCT.
“The concern that has arisen is that looking at the campaigns going on, people are wondering whether any candidate will win those stringent constitutional requirements: 25% and at least two-thirds of the state and of course the majority of lawful votes all over the country.”

A professor of law, Itse Sagay (SAN), has also said a presidential candidate does not necessarily need to secure 25 per cent of the votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to be declared the winner.

According to him. as long as the candidate meets the threshold of 25 per cent in 25 states, he can be declared the winner even if Abuja is not inclusive.

“The constitutional provision does not mean that a candidate that does not score 25 per cent in Abuja cannot be declared the winner,” he said.