By Omeiza Ajayi, ABUJA
Lagos, Oyo and Osun states each backed a different candidate in the February 25, 2023 presidential election, according to the results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
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Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, won Lagos; Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, won Oyo, and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, won Osun.
What happened in Lagos?
Lagos produced the closest of the three contests. Obi polled 582,454 votes (45.81 per cent), while Tinubu, the APC candidate, followed with 572,606 votes (45.04 per cent).
The gap was 9,848 votes, less than one percentage point. Atiku trailed far behind with 75,750 votes (5.96 per cent), and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, had 8,442 votes (0.66 per cent).
What happened in Oyo?
Oyo was not close. Tinubu polled 449,884 votes (55.58 per cent), well ahead of Atiku’s 182,977 votes (22.60 per cent).
His lead of 266,907 votes was the widest of the three states. Obi came third in Oyo with 99,110 votes (12.24 per cent), and Kwankwaso had 4,095 votes (0.51 per cent).
What happened in Osun?
Osun was nearly as tight as Lagos. Atiku won with 354,366 votes (46.88 per cent), while Tinubu had 343,945 votes (45.50 per cent), a difference of 10,421 votes.
Obi finished third with 23,283 votes, and Kwankwaso had 713 votes (0.09 per cent).
What the combined figures show
Added together, the results tell a story that the three winners alone do not. Tinubu won only one of the states, yet he finished first or second in all three and polled 1,366,435 votes across them.
Obi, who topped the Lagos poll, totalled 704,847 votes across the three states because he fell to third in both Oyo and Osun. Atiku polled 613,093 votes, and Kwankwaso finished fourth in each state, with 13,250 votes combined.
Put differently, Obi’s win came by the thinnest of margins in the most populous of the three states. But Tinubu’s lead in Oyo was large enough to leave him comfortably ahead of both rivals on the combined tally.
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