WITH provisional results from 35 states of the country including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is on his way to retaining presidential power until May 29, 2015.
And barring further delays, he will be declared as winner of the 2011 presidential elections today by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, whose Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega, said the results would be ready in 48 hours after the polls.
Jonathan swept the polls in all the 17 states of the South except Osun, which was won by Malam Nuhu Ribadu of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN.
He also had the elections under wraps in the FCT, Benue, Plateau, Kwara, Kogi, Adamawa and Taraba, thereby winning outright in 23 states.
He lost all the seven North-West states of Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara and Jigawa as well as Bauchi, Gombe, Niger, Borno and Yobe to his closest challenger, Maj General Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC. He nevertheless scored at least 25 per cent of votes cast in the affected states apart from Kano and Niger.
The President recorded his best performances in Akwa Ibom, Abia, Anambra, Bayelsa, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu and Rivers states where he garnered more than 90 per cent of the valid votes cast.
Buhari won in 12 states with his best performance in his home state of Katsina where he recorded 73.10 per cent of the votes cast.
So far, Jonathan is ahead of his challengers with 21, 957, 849 votes followed by Buhari (10,884,669 votes) and Ribadu, 2,020,077 votes.