Two ex-Abia govs elected senators, Buhari’s record run — bits from the elections

The 2019 presidential election has finally come to an end.

President Muhammadu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Buhari was announced winner with over three million votes above his closest challenger Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) . 73 presidential candidates were involved – that we also know.

But do you know that it was Buhari’s fifth time running for the nation’s number one office? Do you also know only 40 percent of those with their permanent voter cards (PVCs) came out to vote?

Below is a rundown of the interesting facts about the election:

BUHARI’S FIFTH TIME

Buhari ran for president for the fifth time, the highest in the country. His first shot at the presidency was in 2003 against Olusegun Obasanjo and ever since then, he has remained in the race, winning on two occassions. Persistence.

ONLY 40 PERCENT VOTED

An analysis done by TheCable showed only 40 percent of those that collected their PVCs participated in the presidential election.

Out of the 72,775,585 voters that INEC said got their PVCs, only 29,364,209 of them representing 40 percent were accredited to cast their votes. This is inclusive of valid and non-valid votes.

In other words, a total of 43,411,376 voters did not vote. Too bad.

TWO FORMER GOVERNORS OF ABIA IN SENATE

For the first, Abia state is having two of its former governors representing it in the senate. This is likely a first-time occurrence in the country as well.

While Orji Uzor Kalu won Abia north senatorial district election under the APC, Theodore Orji of the PDP retained his seat in Abia central senatorial district. Interesting.

A TOTAL OF 91 POLITICAL PARTIES SHARED 3% OF VOTES CAST

The presidential election may have had 73 political parties that featured in it but only two – the APC and PDP – truly participated in the real sense.

The two parties racked up 97 percent of the votes cast representing 26,454,825 votes while 71 other parties shared just 869,758 among themselves. Poor.

SARAKI, AKPABIO, AKUME… THE BIG LOSERS

Another interesting fact about the presidential elections is the huge losses recorded at the senate.

While Senate President Bukola Saraki lost his reelection bid, Godswill Akpabio, former minority leader, was also kicked out of the upper legislative chamber.

The loss wave also caught up with George Akume, a three-time senator and one of the big wigs in the senate. Unbelievable.

UNIMPRESSIVE RUN FOR THIRD FORCE CANDIDATES

Since Nigeria’s democracy, those at the helm of affairs have been either from the PDP or APC. And they have all been above 50 years old.

And so, in the build up of the 2019 elections, some young and vibrant individuals said their mission was to retire the “old” politicians. They were mainly three namely Omoyele Sowore, Kingsley Moghalu and Fela Durotoye, and were popularly referred to as the third force candidates.

But out of the 27,324,583 valid votes in the election, the three got 72,618; which is just 0.3 percent of the votes.