Breaking News - INEC Declares Buhari Winner Of 2019 Presidential Election

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has officially declared President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress (APC) as winner of the 2019 presidential election. Muhammadu Buhari won with 15,191,847 votes beating his rival Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with over three million votes.

Following the collation of results of the 23rd February 2019 presidential election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced the All Progressive Congress (APC) presidential candidate and incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of the 2019 Presidential election on Wednesday.

Buhari defeated the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar and other presidential candidates with over 15,191,847 votes, winning in 19 of the states. The INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu said the duty of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is to conclude and collate the presidential result for the final declaration.

However, Osita Chidoka representing the Peoples Democratic Party said there is a discrepancy of more than 1,600,000 voters in terms of registered voters. He said the cancelled votes affected more than 2 million voters. He claimed there were 5.1 million votes that cannot be accounted for and thus called for a rerun.

In his response, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu stated that the 5.1 million voters could not vote because of card readers is not true. He also said when the card readers are deliberately circumvented, votes will be cancelled.

He said constitutionally, he has two roles. Firstly, as the Chief Commissioner of the election, he will announce the national collation of results. Secondly, as the returning officer for the presidential election, he will make an official declaration of the winner of the election.

The INEC chairman announced that Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress (APC) scored 15,191,847 votes while Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 11,262,978. Total valid votes are 27,324,583. Rejected votes are 1,289,607. Total votes cast are 28,614,190. Mahmood Yakubu said following the collation, he said he now performs his role as returning officer and listed all the names of the presidential candidates and their total votes.