A body, 100% Focus Group Movement, has warned opposition parties to stop making inciting statements that might plunge the country into anarchy.
The group, one of the grassroots support organisations that mobilised traders to vote for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the presidential election, in a statement by the Chairman, Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed, said: “The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has admitted that its system suffered unanticipated glitches on the election day, which made it impossible for it to upload polling units’ results of the presidential poll on its portal immediately as promised. But it began to do so once the technical hitches had been resolved. It is important to state that uploading results on IReV was only an add-on feature designed by INEC to further enhance openness and give the public the opportunity to view the results real time.
“IReV was not designed to validate the authenticity of the results. The real and authentic election results are the ones from polling units that were signed by INEC officials, party agents and security operatives.
‘Unfortunately, the opposition averred that INEC’s inability to upload results of the presidential elections online, as promised on February 25, was not due to technical hitches, but rather a deliberate human mischief and manipulation to rig the election.
“A careful scrutiny of the result of the election shows it was a close and tight contest, which speaks to its credibility. The winner, Tinubu, won in 12 states, just like second placed Atiku Abubakar also won in 12 states. Peter Obi, who came third, won in 11 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, which for the purpose of the election counts as a state.
“Tinubu scored 8,794,726 votes, Atiku had 6,984,520 votes, while Obi won 6,202,533 votes. The candidate who came fourth, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), recorded 1,496,687 votes, the majority of which he got from Kano State, his political stronghold in the North. It was, however, only Tinubu who met the constitutional requirement of scoring 25 per cent of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the states of the federation including the FCT, which translates to 24 states. Tinubu met the 25 per cent requirement in 30 states, Atiku in 21 and Obi in 15.”