APC wins 162 Reps seats, PDP takes 102, Labour grabs 34

The All Progressives Congress (APC) won 162 House of Representatives seats in the National Assembly elections held on February 25.

Its closest rival in the election, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), took 102 seats while the Labour Party grabbed 34 seats.

This was disclosed on Saturday by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Mahmoud Yakubu, during a meeting of resident electoral commissioners held at the INEC Conference Room in Abuja.

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The INEC chairman disclosed that the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) won 18 seats while the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) got two and four seats respectively. Also, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) won two seats just as the Young Progressives Party (YPP) had one seat.

On the other hand, the APC won 57 senatorial seats, while the PDP and the Labour Party got 29 and six seats respectively. The NNPP and the SDP got two seats each, while the APGA and the YPP got a seat each.

The INEC chairman acknowldged that last week’s national elections raised a number of issues requiring immediate, medium, and long-term solutions.

“The planning for the election was painstakingly done. However, its implementation came with challenges, some of them unforeseen. The issues of logistics, election technology, behaviour of some election personnel at different levels, attitude of some party agents and supporters added to the extremely challenging environment in which elections are usually held in Nigeria,” he said.

The The presidential and National Assembly elections were held on February 25, but local and internatlonal observers said it was marred by late arrival of INEC materials and officials. The electoral body also breached its own guidelines by failing to upload results in real time to its online portal.

Yakubu said the sacrifice and doggedness of Nigerians and the dignity and maturity displayed by political leaders even in the context of divergent views about the election were commendable, noting that a lot of lessons had been learnt.

“Of immediate concern to the Commission is how the identified challenges can be addressed as we approach the concluding phase of the General Election involving the largest number of constituencies i.e. 28 State Governorship elections and 993 State Houses of Assembly seats,” he said.

He further said that winners of February 25 elections had also been declared for 423 national legislative seats, while supplementary elections would be held in 46 constituencies.

Yakubu disclosed that certificates of return would be presented to senators-elect on Tuesday, March 7, at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, while members of the House of Representatives-elect would receive theirs the following day at the same venue.

He noted that INEC must work harder to overcome the challenges experienced in the last election, stressing that nothing else would be acceptable to Nigerians.

He warned that all staff found to be negligent, whether they were regular or ad hoc officials, including collation and returning officers, must not be involved in forthcoming elections.

“Resident electoral commissioners must also immediately initiate disciplinary action where prima facie evidence of wrongdoing has been established. Election Day logistics must be finalised days before the election and handled by the Electoral Officers (EOs) at Local Government level. This has been our standard practice.

“Centralising the process as was done in some states resulted in delayed deployment of personnel and materials and late commencement of polls. RECs will be held responsible for any tardy arrangement or the failure to deploy electric power generators to collation centres or polling units where such facilities are needed,” Yakubu said.

He said the commission had enough facilities in all the states of the federation, noting that failure to deploy them was simply inexcusable.

He said that refresher training must be conducted for ad hoc staff that participated in the last election, noting that they must be properly trained so that processes would not be delayed or compromised at any stage.

“Arising from last week’s election, the Commission has received reports from our State offices well as complaints and petitions from political parties and candidates. Where infractions of any kind are proven, there will be redress. I must add that any action taken by the Commission is without prejudice to the rights of parties and candidates to seek further remedy as provided by law,” he noted.

On Election day technology, he said the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) would be deployed for voter accreditation and result management, explaining that the deployment of BVAS had gone a long way to sanitising voter accreditation as could be seen from the result of recent elections.

“Since last week, the Commission has intensified the review of the technology to ensure that glitches experienced, particularly with the upload of results are rectified. We are confident that going forward the system will run optimally.”