After receiving the results of 14 states, the INEC Chairman and Returning Officer for the presidential election, Mahmood Yakubu, said Monday evening that the collation of results continues today by 11 a.m.
Mr Yakubu received the Results of Ekiti on Sunday. On Monday, he received the results of Kwara, Osun, Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, Yobe, Enugu, Lagos, Gombe, Jigawa, Adamawa, Katsina and Nasarawa states.
However, no other state’s collations officer was present; therefore, Mr Yakubu said the collation will close for the day and resume by 11 a.m. on Tuesday when the results of more states would have arrived.
So far, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has won in six states; Jigawa, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Kwara, and Ekiti states.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, is leading in five states; Katsina, Adamawa, Gombe, Yobe and Osun.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party (LP) Candidate, Peter Obi, has won in Nasarawa, Lagos and Enugu.
The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, has not won any of the states presented to the INEC Chairman as of Tuesday.
Results of some other states have been announced by the appropriate INEC officials in the states but have yet to be presented to Mr Yakubu in Abuja.
PDP, LP’s dissent
Earlier during the collation of results, the agents of the PDP and LP walked out of the collation centre in protest of INEC’s failure to upload all polling unit results before the collation of results continued.
Both parties claimed that the electoral law stipulates that all results must be uploaded to the INEC result Viewing Portal (IReV) before collation.
But the INEC Chairman insisted that the process can continue even if the results were not uploaded.
Less than 60 per cent of the result sheets across Nigeria had been uploaded as of Monday evening.
INEC’s National Commissioner for Voter Education, Festus Okoye, had on Sunday attributed the failure to upload the results to technical hitches.
The INEC Chairman, however, said he would speak on the uploading of results today.
In a press conference later on Tuesday, the PDP accused INEC of announcing compromised results.
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, demanded that INEC transmit the results directly “into the INEC Server/Website as provided for under Section 68 of the Electoral Act 2022.”
Also on Monday, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo alleged fraud in the result collation process. He said the failure of the BVAS to promptly upload results from polling units in the election results portal showed the process was being manipulated. He asked President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in the controversy.
In a prompt response, the campaign council of the APC accused Mr Obasajo of calling for a military coup in Nigeria. The council said Mr Obasanjo has no evidence of the fraud he alleges and was not a neutral arbiter having supported Mr Obi of the Labour Party in the presidential election.
