Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, has been declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the winner of the February 25 presidential election in a tightly contested poll amid several fraud claims.

In the final result declared by the INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu at the National Collation Centre, Abuja, on Wednesday morning, where the election results of each state were presented over three days ago, Mr Tinubu gathered 8,794,726 votes across 12 states to emerge the president-elect.

Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) followed closely, scoring 6,984,520 votes across 12 states, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) garnered 6,101,533 votes from 12 states to become third. Former Kano governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) finished fourth in the election with 1,496,687 votes.

Meanwhile, the whole electoral process had not been without controversies, with PDP, Labour Party and ADC calling for the cancellation of the presidential elections, arguing that INEC did not comply with the law in collating and announcing results.

They had requested INEC to display the results captured on its IReV portal from each polling unit to crosscheck with the manual results presented by the resident electoral commissioners (REC) and the state collation officers of the presidential election (SCOPE) from each state at the National Collation Centre, Abuja.

To be declared the winner, a candidate must score the highest number of votes and at least 25 per cent of votes in 25 states (two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja).