Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!<doc-sep>The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that results of 12 local governments were declared at the presidential election collation centre which went for a break at about 4.30 a.m. on Monday. The results collated by Chief Returning Officer of the state, Prof. Yahuza Bello, indicated that Buhari is leading with high votes, ahead of Abubakar and the rest of the contenders. Bello is the Vice-Chancellor, Bayero University, Kano. He said Buhari polled 17, 684 against 14, 570 scored by Abubakar in Kware, 15, 465 against 10, 176 in Yabo and 41, 347 against 24, 598 in Sokoto South Local Government Area. The APC Presidential candidate scored 23, 242 votes in Gwadabawa while PDP counterpart obtained 15, 656 and Buhari polled 16, 466 as Abubakar got 13, 659 in Kebbe Local Government Area. In Illela Local Government Area, Buhari scored 25, 217 votes, Abubakar 16, 546; Sokoto North, Buhari obtained 32, 943 votes and Abubakar got 20, 884 votes while in Raba LGA, Buhari scored 15, 371 votes against 10, 918 votes scored by Abubakar. Buhari also scored 20, 307 votes in Wurno LGA while Abubakar scored 9, 847 votes out of 33, 048 votes cast in the presidential election. Abubakar led in Tureta, Silame and Isa Local Government Areas where he scored 10, 209, 13, 949 and 17, 892 as Buhari got 8, 516, 10, 910 and 15, 264 votes obtained from the three councils.<doc-sep>Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari has been declared the winner of the country’s election after results showed that he claimed 56% of the vote. With ballots from all 36 states counted, Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) garnered 15.2m votes compared with 11.3 m for Atiku Abubakar’s People’s Democratic party. The election turnout was 35.6 percent, the electoral commission said, which compared with 44% in the 2015 presidential election. “Muhammadu Buhari of the APC, having satisfied the requirement of the law and scored the highest number of votes is hereby declared the winner,” Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), told election officials and reporters in the early hours of Wednesday. Buhari won in 19 states – including the two most populous, Lagos and Kano – while Abubakar was victorious in 17. To win in the first round, the victor must get at least a quarter of the votes in two thirds of the states, plus an overall majority, and Buhari appeared to have won enough to avoid a runoff. Bashir Ahmad, one of Buhari’s adviser’s, posted on Twitter a picture of the president laughing and with the slogan “BuhariHasWon”. A message posted on Buhari’s Twitter feed late on Tuesday showed him smiling and surrounded by applauding staff at his campaign office. “I met the very hardworking members of our team, many of them young people, and was briefed on the performance of our party so far in the Presidential Elections. I am very proud of what has been accomplished,” he said on Twitter. But the opposition People’s Democratic party (PDP) rejected the result and threatened to take legal action, saying that the ruling All Progressives’ Congress had manipulated the vote. “I’m not aware of any meeting of the PDP legal team, but I know there are concerns laid to the INEC [electoral commission] chairman , based on promises he made to Nigerians on the conduct of the elections,” Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP spokesman, said. “When he addresses those concerns, then we will know what to do.” Babatunde Fashola, a minister and the campaign director for election monitoring, told the Associated Press that they were preparing for the president to give his acceptance speech and celebrate. Dozens of supporters began dancing outside party headquarters in Abuja. He said Atiku, who is known by his first name, should accept his loss gracefully and provide evidence to back up claims that the ruling party manipulated the results of Saturday’s vote. The election was delayed at the last minute by a week and, since it was held, 47 people have been killed, according to the monitoring organisation the Situation Room. Reports of vote-buying, multiple failures with the card readers supposed to accredit voters and extremist attacks in the north east marred the election. Many polling stations opened late and, in some, voting continued on Sunday. Shortly before the election, Buhari suspended the chief justice Walter Onnoghen, who heads the supreme court and would have ruled on any dispute over the results. The president’s move was widely criticised as a “calculated attempt to gain some electoral advantage” in the case of a legal challenge. Adewunmi Emoruwa of The Election Network said the election fell short of expectations. “The numbers alone are indicting. We have already witnessed a record number of cancelled votes – more than double the numbers from the previous poll – and which is only a reflection of the widespread irregularities across every part of the country. We all observed as thugs had a field day unleashing terror on demographically profiled voters, which led to the suppressed turnout that has been recorded.” Buhari and Atiku are both northern Muslims in their 70s who have long been in politics. Buhari is seen by many as a strict, inflexible but personally incorruptible figure, while many hoped Atiku, a wealthy businessman and former vice-president, would enact policies to help boost Nigeria’s struggling economy. Buhari’s popularity dropped over the course of his term, because of his perceived inability to deal fairly with government corruption – he was accused of largely targeting his opponents for prosecutions – and his failure to deal with the many threats facing Nigerians. The north-east region is especially dangerous, because Boko Haram and its offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province still wield considerable might. It would be unusual for a presidential election to be won by a candidate not backed by a powerful cabal of former generals that includes former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida. Buhari narrowly won Lagos, where only 1.1 million of an estimated 20 million residents voted, as well as the pivotal state of Kano, despite the fact that its powerful ex-governor Rabiu Kwankwaso switched from Buhari’s APC to the PDP last year.<doc-sep>
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that APC won all the three senatorial seats in Sokoto State, defeating his rival, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). NAN reports that Buhari polled 490, 333 votes against Abubakar’s 361, 604. Buhari obtained higher votes in 19 local government areas and Abubakar got votes in four of Sokoto local governments. Incumbent Senator representing Sokoto North senatorial district, Aliyu Wamakko of APC, had succeeded in retaining his seat by defeating his arch rival in the zone, former Senator Ahmed Maccido of PDP with over 34,000 votes. Wamakko polled 172,980 as against the 138,922 secured by Maccido. Senator Ibrahim Gobir of the APC was also re-elected for the Sokoto East senatorial district with 170,665 to defeat the incumbent Speaker of the Sokoto State House of Assembly, Alhaji Salihu Maidaji who got 140,322 under the PDP umbrella . The Senate Committee chairman on Appropriation and Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Army, Sen Ibrahim Danbaba of the PDP, lost his seat to first timer, Alhaji Abubakar Shehu-Tambuwal of APC. Shehu-Tambuwal scored 134,224 votes as against the 112, 546 secured by Danbaba. Bala Abubakar III, the current member representing Sokoto North/ South Federal Constituency, retained his seat with 71, 486 votes. Abubakar III defeated arch contender, Abubakar Abdullahi of PDP who got 52, 148 votes. Incumbent member representing Shagari/Yabo Federal Constituency, Aminu Shehu-Shagari who contested on the platform of PDP, lost his seat to Umar Abubakar who polled 33, 193 votes against 24, 932 votes scored by Shehu-Shagari. Residents were still celebrating the APC victories as the cheerful movements had started shortly after the results were declared. Wamakko described his victory as divine by the Almighty Allah and urged politicians and the general public to accept the results in good faith and live in peace. In a statement by Bashir Mani, his Media Aide, Wamakko said “God gives and takes leadership to whosoever He wishes and at the times He wants. “I am highly grateful to the Almighty Allah for granting me this invaluable success and indeed all the candidates of the APC across Nigeria.” Wamakko further said APC would continue to be honest, fair and transparent and remain on its watch words. “As a party, we are truly committed to evenly developing the entire country, while our hope is to religiously serve humanity. “In the same vein, the party is unshakably committed to the sustainable peace and unity of Nigeria,” the Statement quoted Wamakko. Wamakko appealed to Nigerians to remain calm and accept the verdict of the electorate in good faith, with maturity and piety, admonishing that politics should not be taken as a do or die affair. “In every contest, there must be a winner and a loser; I will personally be magnanimous in victory.