Keyamo: Tinubu won presidential poll because he was the only pan-Nigerian candidate

Festus Keyamo, spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council, says Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, won the February 25 elections because he was the “only pan-Nigerian candidate”.

Keyamo spoke in a chat with TVC on Monday.

Tinubu was declared the winner of the presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The electoral commission said Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes. Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had the second-highest figure with 6,984,520 votes, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), was next with 6,101,533 votes.

Reacting to the election results, Keyamo said the APC candidate won the polls because he “got his mandate from a crossed section of Nigeria”.

He said Tinubu was “the only candidate that had votes across Nigeria and received votes from across various sections and demographics”.

“The eventual winner of the election, Tinubu, got his mandate from a crossed section of Nigeria — from north, south, east, and west. He had votes from all parts of the country. It is clear, judging by the voting patterns, it reflects the type of campaign carried out by some candidates of their parties,” Keyamo said.

“We simply won that election by presenting a candidate that is pan-Nigerian. Asiwaju won his votes from all six regions in the country. It was only him that won at least one state in five regions in the country except of course one. The three leading candidates had 12 states each. Atiku had nine states in the north and three in the south. Peter Obi had nine states in the south and three in the north-central — not even the core north. But Tinubu had six states each in the north and six in the south. It clearly shows you the kind of spread and balance of votes he had from different parts of the country.

“Asiwaju won three regions outright, Atiku had just one and Obi got two. All the regions Asiwaju came second at least. He never took third. That is how he won. Asiwaju was the only candidate that had votes across Nigeria and received across various sections and demographics of Nigerians. Asiwaju was the only pan-Nigerian candidate.”

Meanwhile, both Atiku and Obi have declared their dissatisfaction with the poll and vowed to challenge the result in court.