President Muhammadu Buhari has won his re-election bid as he polled 15,191,847 votes to defeat his closest rival, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the presidential poll conducted on February 23.
Atiku polled 11,262,978 to lose the election with a margin of 3,928,869 votes.
This is according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) collated figure of votes from all the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory released on Wednesday morning.
Though INEC has not formally declared Buhari as the winner as of the time of writing this report, the President has met all the requirements the constitution requires a candidate to meet before such could be declared the winner.
According to the constitution, a presidential candidate must have nothing less than 25 per cent of votes cast in at least two-thirds or 24 states of the federation. The candidate should also have majority votes in the election.
With the figure released by INEC at the national collation centre in Abuja on Wednesday morning, the incumbent President has more than 25 per cent of the election in over 24 states.
He also defeated his closest rival with 3,928,869 votes.
Atiku also had 25 per cent of the total votes cast in over 24 states but lost the poll when the simple majority rule condition is applied.
While President Buhari won in 19 states, Atiku won in 17 states and the FCT.
The states Buhari won are Bauchi, Borno, Ekiti, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Osun, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara.
Atiku won in Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Benue, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Enugu, Imo, Ondo, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Taraba and the FCT.
The INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, had earlier said the last lap of the announcement of the election result would start by 3am on Wednesday.
INEC had started the collation of the results on Monday with the declaration of results from 11 states and the FCT, during which Buhari won seven states leaving Atiku with four and the FCT
In 2015, Mr Buhari polled a total of 15,416,221 votes to defeat the then incumbent and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, President Goodluck Jonathan, who got 12,853,162 votes.
The retired army officer’s journey to the presidency began in 2003 when he contested under the platform of the now defunct All Peoples Party, APP.
