The initial suspense and curiosity among Nigerians over the outcome of last Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections began to give way last night as President Muhammadu Buhari took the lead in four of the country’s geo-political zones. Other winners on the Senate and House of Representatives elections also emerged.
The zones won by Buhari are the Northwest, the Northeast, the Southwest and the North Central. Results from states and local government areas in the aforementioned zones showed that Buhari, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, will certainly secure another term of four years.
INEC will officially announce the results after their submission by the state resident electoral commissioners (REC) at the National Collation Centre in Abuja. Results declared by the commission’s officials at the polling units, wards and local government areas put Buhari far ahead his main rival, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
At the time of filing this report last night, results available to LEADERSHIP, which key stakeholders confirmed showed that Buhari was fully in control of the Northwest. It was learnt that Buhari already had 20 states across the country in his kitty.
Buhari also made impressive showing in the Southwest zone, where he won in most of the states in the region. Except Oyo State, where the coast was not very clear at the time of filing this report last night, Buhari took the lead in other states in the entire region Of the seven local governments released in Borno State, Buhari won in all of them.
He also swept all the councils in his home state of Katsina where all the APC senatorial candidates also defeated their rivals. The situation was the same in Gombe State where the president defeated his main rival, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in seven of the nine local government results released by INEC.
The collation in Gombe State was presided over by Prof. Kyari Mohammed, vice chancellor, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola. In the presidential election, results from Gombe LGA showed that APC polled 86, 162 votes while the PDP scored 7,634 votes.
In Nafada council, APC scored 15, 417 votes while PDP had 5, 792 votes. Also in Yamaltu-Deba LGA, APC got 56, 157 votes to defeat PDP which polled 13, 248 votes. In Dukku council, APC received 36, 010 votes against PDP’s 7,435 while in Kwami LGA, APC polled 36, 317 to beat PDP which had 6,614 votes. In Balanga LGA, APC had 29, 647 to PDP’s 14, 614 while in Kaltungo LGA, APC received 20, 944 as against PDP’s 20, 733. However, PDP defeated APC in Shongom and Billiri LGAs.
In Shongom LGA, PDP scored 12, 871 votes against APC’s 9, 642 while in Billiri LGA, APC scored 15, 331 votes while PDP polled 21, 328 votes. Results for Funakaye and Akko LGAs are yet to be presented.
Atiku however upset Buhari’s winning streak when he won the area councils in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The announcement of the results by Prof. Muhammed Liman, the collation officer for FCT, who is also the vice chancellor of Nasarawa State University, showed that PDP won in three area councils.
The PDP performed extremely well in Gwagwalada and Kwali Area Councils of the FCT. Relatedly, while Buhari and the ruling APC won convincingly in North Central states of Kwara and Niger, the opposition PDP is set to take over Benue State.
As at press time, former governor Gabriel Suswam of the PDP was declared the winner of the Zone A senatorial district seat just as PDP’s Abba Moro won the Zone C Senate seat currently occupied by Senator David Mark.
The zone comprises the people of Idoma ethnic nationality while Zone A clinched by Suswam is dominated by the Tivs. However, Senator George Akume is struggling to hold on to his Zone B Senate seat with clear indications that he may lose it to Orke Jev of the PDP. The pattern of voting in the state showed…..READ HERE
