By News Desk
As polls close for the presidential and national assembly elections, Nigerians are waiting with baited breath to hear the winners.
However, it would take some time for INEC to declare the winner. In 2015, the election was held on March 28 and INEC officially declared the winner three days later on April 1, 2015 at exactly 2:55 AM Nigerian Time.
The 2019 election was held on February 23, 2019, but it took until 4:39AM of February 26, 2019 for INEC to officially declare President Buhari winner.
All eyes are now on collation centers. Using Nigeria’s tiered collation system, the result (in signed Form EC8A) will be transmitted from polling units to ward, local government and state collation, before each state returning officer appear before live television in Abuja to submit and read out the result from their respective states.
Even before the official announcement by INEC, many Nigerians learn about the winner as results keep coming from different states. With the introduction of BVAS voting and IREV online collation system, it is expected that the election result will be announced faster than in previous elections.
Legally, a winner is declared upon meeting the constitutional requirement of achieving a minimum of 25% vote share across at least 24 states plus the FCT, in addition to scoring the highest votes during the election.
Many analysts have admitted the possibility of the 2023 elections going into rerun, as it is likely that a winner could not be declared after first round of voting. If this happen, it would be the first time since the beginning of the First Republic in 1999 that a winner is not produced after first round of voting.
In event that the election is forced into second round, the rerun shall take place between the first two contestants in terms of both 25% national spread and total vote tally. Only two candidates and parties will be on the ballot. The first candidate is the one that polls the highest vote tally, while the second will be the candidate who has the majority of votes in the highest number of states.
