Collation of presidential election results resumes on Monday, as APC wins in Ekiti State

Nigeria’s electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Sunday announced the 2023 presidential election results for Ekiti State.

INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner for Ekiti, Ayobami Salami reeled out the results at the 2023 presidential election collation centre at the International Conference Centre in Abuja.

He said Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) polled 210,494 votes followed by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 89,554 votes.

Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) polled 11,397 votes while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) polled 264 votes.

INEC National Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu said the commission expects the results of the other 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory and moved the national collation to 11am on Monday.

Mahmood also said the collation of presidential election results will be done at four levels — first at the 8,889 wards, then at the 774 local government areas, then the state collation officers for the presidential election (SCOPs) at the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory will submit the votes per candidate in Abuja.

The electoral chief said the collation centre will be open all day and all night with short breaks.

He also cautioned political parties to only draw their figures from INEC.

“I appeal to all political parties and media organisations to draw their figures only from the official results released by the commission as the only body constitutionally responsible for releasing official election figures,” Yakubu emphasised.

Elections for the office of the President, 360 House of Representatives and 109 Senatorial seats were held in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory on Saturday and Nigerians expect the declaration of results by the electoral umpire.

Though 18 candidates are in the race, pollsters and analysts have described the contest as a four-horse race between Kwankwaso, Atiku, Tinubu and Obi.

While Obi and Tinubu are from the southern region of the country, Kwankwaso and Atiku come from the northern part of Nigeria. The four heavyweights and strong contenders have large followings with the numerical potential of emerging as the successor of President Muhammadu Buhari whose two-term tenure ends on May 29, 2023.

Elections were held at most of the 176,606 polling units in Nigeria as 87.2 million voters with Permanent Voter Cards voted for their preferred candidates.