General Muhammadu Buhari
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After three previous
failed shots at the presidency, Muhammadu Buhari is finally moving into Aso
Rock, Nigeria’s presidential palace,as the President of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria.
A retired
Major-General, Mr. Buhari, who contested on the platform of the All
Progressives Congress, APC, polled a total of 15,416,221 votes to defeat the
incumbent and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, President Goodluck
Jonathan, who got 12,853,162 votes.
The APC candidate got
the highest number of votes in 21 states while Mr. Jonathan prevailed in 15
states and Abuja.
News Agency of Nigeria/Premium Times report:
Mr. Buhari has also met
the constitutional requirement to be declared President-elect by getting more
than one quarter of the votes in 27 states.
The APC candidate won
in Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi,
Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara.
Mr. Jonathan on the
other hand prevailed in Rivers, Plateau, Taraba, Nasarawa, Imo, Enugu, Ekiti,
Edo, Delta, Ebonyi, Cross River, Bayelsa, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Abia and the
Federal Capital Territory (Abuja).
The Independent
National Electoral Commission is yet to announce Mr. Buhari’s victory because
the commission is still expecting results of the presidential election from
Borno.
But we can report that
Mr. Buhari got 473,543 votes in Borno compared to the 25,640 earned by Mr.
Jonathan.
So, the APC candidate has
practically won the election by beating Mr. Jonathan by 2,563,059 votes.
Mr. Buhari’s victory
makes it the second time since 1999, when Nigeria returned to democratic rule,
that a retired military officer would become Nigeria’s president.
Mr. Buhari, who wields
enormous support in Northern Nigeria, won in 21 states to emerge victorious.
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.
That year, he got 12.7
million votes to lose to Olusegun Obasanjo, also a retired army officer, who
was seeking a second term as president.
Despite picking a
southerner, the late Chuba Okadigbo, as a running mate, Mr. Buhari got a huge
chunk of his votes from the north.
Four years later, Mr.
Buhari, contesting under the ANPP, attempted another shot at the presidency,
this time going head to head with a fellow northerner, Umar Yar’adua of the
PDP.
Again, he lost.
Despite still picking a
southerner as a running mate, his performance in 2007 was far worse than that
of 2003 – he polled a meagre 6.6 million votes while the eventual winner got
thrice his vote.
By 2011, Mr. Buhari
helped found another party, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, and, once
again, he aimed a shot at becoming president.
Once again, he picked a
southerner as running mate.
On April, 16, 2011, he
ran against the incumbent, President Jonathan.
He polled 12.2 million
votes to lose to Mr. Jonathan who got almost twice his votes.
After the 2011 general
elections, three major political parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria
(ACN), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), and Mr.
Buhari’s CPC – began talks on a merger that would enable it provide a
formidable platform to challenge the dominant PDP.
On February 6, 2013,
the APC was founded.
“We promise not to
disappoint Nigerians who have reposed much confidence in us,” Lai Mohammed,
then interim National Publicity Secretary of the APC, said at the time.
“We say that contrary
to the lies peddled by the naysayers, we are not seeking political power for
the sake of getting it, but in order to use it to empower our people and allow
their long-nursed hopes and dreams to become a reality.”
At the APC presidential
primaries in December 2014, Mr. Buhari contested against political heavyweights
like Atiku Abubakar, former vice president; Rabiu Kwankwaso, governor of Kano
State; and Rochas Okorocha, governor of Imo State.
At the end of the day,
the retired general polled 3,430 delegates votes to defeat his challengers.
For
his running mate in the run up to the 2015 general election, Mr. Buhari again
picked a southwesterner as a running mate.
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