Photo/ Udaku News

By Winnie Kamau

Nairobi, Kenya: The Nigerian Elections has left millions baffled with the results of the just concluded Presidential polls.

From This Day Live reports indicated that the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu declared Bola Tinubu the winner at exactly 4.10am on 1st March 2023 in Abuja. By this declaration, Tinubu would be the 16th leader of Nigeria since independence in 1960.

The former Lagos state governor Tinubu polled a total votes of  8,794,726 to defeat his closest rival and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar who scored  6,984,520 votes, and Peter Obi of Labour party who polled 6,101,533 votes.

Photo/ Reuters

The presidential candidate of New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso came a distant fourth with the total votes of 1,496,687 votes.

Yakubu said the registered voters for the election was 93,469,008, while 25,286,616 voters were accredited.

What Happened?

What happened these are the questions that are boiling in the minds of many, why only 24,965,218 votes were cast.

INEC Chairman says the valid votes were 24,025,940, while total rejected votes were 939,278.

24.9 million voters turned up and their pvcs were collected yet 93.4 million Nigerians had registered to vote in the 2023 General elections.

The data from Live results collated by CivicHive show all the states in Nigeria had over 1million registered voters and only Ekiti State had the least of registered voters at 987,647.

What happened to 68.5 million Nigerians who registered to vote? Where did they go during the polls? These are some of the questions in many people’s minds.

The next phase of elections is the Gubernatorial and House Assembly elections are set to be held on 11th March 2023, it is yet to be seen if the numbers will change.