President Muhammadu Buhari, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has been officially declared the winner of Nigeria’s presidential election.
Nigerians trooped out in their millions to cast their votes for a new President on Saturday, February 23, 2019.
The elections were earlier scheduled for February 16, 2019, but had to be postponed by one week by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), due to issues with “logistics”. The process was marred by incidents of irregularities, as well as violence, which led to cancellation of elections in some areas.
The election also recorded a significant low turnout of voters.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had announced that more than 70 million people obtained Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to participate in the elections. However, significantly less than 30 million people participated in the electoral process.
According to an official declaration by Professor Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Buhari polled APC 15,191,847 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who polled PDP 11,262,978 votes.
Buhari got landslide-winning figures from the North, with more than 70 parties fielded candidates for the presidential election.
Yakubu formally declared Buhari “winner and returned elected” at exactly 4:39am Nigerian time.
