2023 Election Results Filter in as Tinubu Leads Atiku, Obi Amid Glitches

By Adedapo Adesanya

Nigerians continue to watch on as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the results of the tightest presidential election in a generation.

Now, two days after millions of Nigerians cast their ballots, apprehension remains because only around a third of the results have been displayed on the electoral body’s website, but results continue to be announced at the National Collation Centre in Abuja.

Preliminary results gathered by Business Post from the results announced by the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) of INEC in the different states of the country show that the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Bola Tinubu, is leading in with 7.54 million votes, followed by Mr Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with 6.03 million votes, and Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party with 4.29 million votes while Mr Rabiu Kwakwanso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has 1.43 million votes.

Data was gathered from third-party resource centres since there are technical issues with the INEC tracking portal, INEC Result Election Viewer (IreV).

The votes, in which 87 million voters took to the polls on Saturday, was the first to be carried out nationally using biometric machines known as the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for voter verification, however, there was a lot of report of glitches.

Although there were claims that elections were held at most of the 176,606 polling units in Nigeria as the 87.2 million voters with Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) voted for their preferred candidates, the numbers being presented show a drop in voting against expectations.

The electoral body has been criticized by political parties who say the results are being uploaded slowly and argue that there are not enough checks and balances to ensure the results collated and announced by INEC match those sent by individual polling stations.

Yesterday, agents of the PDP and Labour Party led by Mr Dino Melaye staged a walkout.

Early results this morning show that PDP won Kaduna, Bayelsa, and Sokoto states while Labour Party won in Cross River, FCT Abuja, while the ruling Party has Zamfara.

The coalition that closed by 10 PM will resume by 11 AM.