Former Vice President, Mr Atiku Abubakar, has won the presidential ticket of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), setting up his seventh presidential run for the 2027 general elections.
He defeated former Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, and businessman, Mr Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, in the party’s primary election held on Monday.
The returning officer, Mr Tunde Ogbeha, declared Mr Abubakar as the winner after the final collation of the results from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He said Mr Abubakar emerged after polling 1,846,370 votes to defeat Mr Amaechi, who came second with 504,117 votes, and Mr Hayatu-Deen, who secured 177,120 votes.
The primary election was conducted through direct voting across the country. The collation began on Tuesday and continued on Wednesday at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja.
Mr Amaechi and Mr Hayatu-Ddeen rejected the process on Tuesday, alleging widespread irregularities before the final collation of results began.
Mr Amaechi described the results as “concocted,” alleging massive voter disenfranchisement and manipulation during the exercise. Mr Hayatu-Deen also accused party officials of rigging and compromising the credibility of the process.
Despite the protests, the ADC proceeded with the collation and declaration of results in Abuja, formally returning Atiku as the party’s presidential candidate for the 2027 general election.
The victory marks another presidential bid for the former vice president, who previously contested under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2019 and 2023 elections.
Mr Abubakar dominated the contest across many northern states, recording landslide victories in Adamawa, Kano, Gombe, Bauchi, Kaduna, Borno, Sokoto, Kebbi, and Zamfara.
In Adamawa State, his home state, he polled 177,141 votes against Mr Amaechi’s 1,896 votes and Mr Hayatu-Deen’s 18,949 votes. He also secured 155,595 votes in Kano, 136,933 in Gombe, 115,410 in Bauchi, and 108,784 in Kaduna.
Mr Amaechi, however, performed strongly in parts of the South-south, winning Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Akwa Ibom, and Ebonyi states.
In Rivers State, the former Rivers governor recorded one of the biggest margins of the election, polling 115,650 votes against Atiku’s 912 votes. He also defeated the former vice president in Bayelsa with 21,404 votes to 1,470 and in Delta with 35,325 votes to 10,023.
Mr Hayatu-Deen failed to win any state but posted notable numbers in Borno, Benue, Adamawa, Katsina, and Niger states.
With Mr Abubakar’s emergence, this will be his seventh opportunity to win the coveted presidency after running in 1993 under the Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential primaries, 2007 as the Action Congress (AC) presidential candidate, and 2011 under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In 2015, he contested the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primaries, losing to the late eventual winner Muhammadu Buhari, and then returned as the PDP presidential candidate in 2019 and 2023.
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