The just-concluded presidential election which gave the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari, a second term mandate sprung surprises especially with the scores polled by some smaller parties.

The five parties which garnered the highest votes are: the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peoples Coalition Party (PCP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Action Democratic (ADP).

The APC clinched power from the opposition PDP in 2015 after a keenly contested poll that saw the then incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, conceding defeat to Mr Buhari even before the final vote tally. It was the first time in Nigeria’s history that an opposition party would unseat a ruling one.

The 2019 presidential election was equally hotly coo steered across the regions. The PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who came second has rejected the outcome of the polls and has said he will be heading to court.

Statistics

There were 84 million registered voters before the 2019 election, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but after the final results were collated, the commission said there were 82,344,107 registered voters as collated by the states.

Out of these registered voters, the total accredited voters stood at 29,364,209 while total votes cast were 28,614,190.

The total valid votes and rejected votes were 27,324,583 and 1,289,607 respectively.

Surprises?

It was surprising for many that parties like the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), and Young Progressives Congress (YPP) who had promising and prominent candidates did not get more votes.

The APC polled the highest votes making it the winner, followed by its main challenger the PDP.

The third party with the highest votes, PCP, came as a surprise seeing its campaign activities before the election were negligible.

Some have humorously said voters may have ‘erroneously’ thumb printed the slot for the PCP because the party’s slot is just before the PDP on the ballot.

Below is a list of the parties and their scores.

APC – 15,191,847
PDP – 11,262,978
PCP – 110,196
APGA – 66,851
ADP – 54,930