Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has maintained his lead in the race to be the successor of President Muhammadu Buhari, according to results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
As of the time of filing this report, Tinubu had won in 11 states, polling over 8.5 million votes.
Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had 6.8 million votes, leading in 12 states.
Peter Obi of the Labour Party, had over 6 million votes, leading in 13 states, including Lagos and the Federal Captial Territory (FCT).
Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria’s People Party, is the fourth in the race, polling around 1.5 million votes and winning in a state.
Voters, political parties, and observers have expressed concerns over the inability to view most of the results from polling units on the portal set up by INEC.
As of 10pm on Saturday, hours of after voting and counting had ended in many polling stations, results were yet to be uploaded on the INEC Result Viewing portal (IReV).
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had on Sunday expressed regret over the delay in uploading the election results, blaming the setback on technical hitches.
It said its technical team was working assiduously to solve all the outstanding problems, adding that users of the IReV would have noticed improvements since Saturday night.
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But as of 8:00pm on Tuesday, only 115,825 of the 176,846 results had been uploaded on the IReV.
The IReV platform, which was introduced by the electoral body in 2020, enables citizens to view copies of election results as compiled and recorded at polling units upon the conclusion of voting.
Yiaga Africa, a civil society organisation, said on Sunday that the failure of the IReV system, intended to enhance transparency, undermined public confidence in the process and could potentially impugn the integrity of the elections.
“The delay in uploading the results undermines public confidence in the result transmission process as it deviates from the guidelines for the elections and it fails to meet citizens’ expectations. Thus far, the 2023 presidential elections are once again a missed opportunity,” Hussaini Abdu, chair of Yiaga Africa, said.
On Monday, Ernest Koroma, head of ECOWAS Election Observation Mission, expressed concerns over the delay in uploading the election results by INEC.
“There is a lot of anxiety out there, and you know that the more we delay, the more we give room to speculations, misinformation and disinformation, we are concerned about it,” he said.
