INEC Declares Tinubu President-Elect
BY EDMOND ODOK AND SEGUN ADEBAYO – The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as Nigeria’s President-elect.
According to the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu Tinubu emerged victorious after defeating Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) and 14 other presidential candidates.
Prof Yakubu, who announced the result at 4.10 am on Wednesday, said Tinubu garnered 8,794,726 votes from the 24,025,940 total valid votes cast during the February 25, 2023 presidential poll.
The INEC Chairman said Tinubu’s closest rival, Atiku, polled 6,984,520 votes, LP’s Obi got 6,101,533; while Kwankwaso of the NNPP scored 1,496,687.
He said Tinubu, having satisfied the requirements of the law, is returned elected, adding that the certificate of return will be issued to the president-elect and the vice president elect, Kashim Shettima, by 3 pm today, Wednesday, March 1, 2023.
Tinubu, who defeated Atiku with over 1.8m votes, won majority of the votes cast in 12 states of Zamfara, Jigawa, Niger, Kwara, Oyo, Ekiti, Kogi, Benue, Ogun, Borno, Ondo, and Rivers states.
Though in second place, PDP’s Atiku also won in 12 states just as the Labour Party’s Peter Obi won majority votes in 11 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
By the Electoral umpire’s declaration, Atiku won in Osun, Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina, Kaduna, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba states while Obi defeated all comers in Abia, Lagos, Edo, Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi, Cross River, Delta, Nasarawa, Plateau and the FCT.
On his part, the NNPP’s Standard bearer, Musa Kwankwaso floored other candidates to win in Kano State.
Tinubu’s Long Walk To Presidency
Born on 29 March 1952, Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu served as the Governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007 on the platform of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD).
His political career began in 1992, when he joined the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) where he was a member of the Peoples Front faction led by Shehu Musa Yar’adua and made up of other politicians such as Umaru Yar’adua, Atiku Abubakar, Baba Gana Kingibe, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Abdullahi Aliyu Sumaila, Magaji Abdullahi, Dapo Sarumi and Yomi Edu.
He was elected into the Senate to represent the Lagos West Senatorial District in the short-lived Nigerian Third Republic.
Tinubu spent his early life in Nigeria and later moved to the United States where he studied Accounting at Chicago State University.
He returned to Nigeria in the early 1980s and was employed by Mobil Nigeria as an accountant, before entering politics.
Tinubu became an activist campaigning for the return of democracy as a part of the National Democratic Coalition movement after the late military junta Sani Abacha dissolved the Senate in 1993.
Forced into exile in 1994, Tinubu returned after Abacha’s death in 1998. The former governor of Lagos State played a key role in the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013.
He led the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the merger talks with the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) led by incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari and the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) of Dr Ogbonaya Onu as well as a faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) led by Rochas Okorocha. The four parties with some elements from the new Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) came together to form the APC.
According to information obtained from Wikipedia, Tinubu’s mother, Abibatu Mogaji, was a trader that later became the Iyaloja of Lagos State. His early days saw him attending St. John’s Primary School, Aroloya, Lagos and Children’s Home School in Ibadan.
Tinubu then went to the United States in 1975, where he studied first at Richard J. Daley College in Chicago and then at Chicago State University and was said to have graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting. – Additional reports from Daily Trust
