The widely circulated allegation that Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party (LP), won 19 states in the election on February 25 has been deemed false by Dubawa, a Nigerian fact-checking organization.
With more than six million votes, former Anambra state governor Obi finished third in the presidential election. The assertion that Peter Obi won the 2023 presidential election in 19 states according to INEC's IReV portal has been debunked as false.
He received the most votes in 11 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), but those votes were insufficient to defeat Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who received more over eight million votes.
With nearly seven million votes, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) finished second to Tinubu.
However, because many of them believed Obi had won the election, his followers have refused to recognize the Independent National Electoral Commission's (INEC) findings.
The LP flagbearer added credence to their argument by declaring in his first address following the elections that he had won and would show it in court.
Obidients aim to triumph legitimately.
It points out that the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) device's inability to upload the results of the polls held on February 25 was the main source of dispute.
As a result, some Facebook users who support the "Obidient" movement claimed Obi won in 19 states of the federation, including the FCT, in contrast to INEC's official results.
Additionally, they noted that the PDP candidate only prevailed in eight states, while the APC candidate won in seven states and the NNPP candidate in two.
The allegations were proven to be false by Dubawa's verification. The fact-checking organization claimed that, as of the time it filed its report, not all of the results from voting stations across Nigeria had been posted to the IReV platform.
In part, the report stated: "DUBAWA went to the INEC's website to view the results. Only 164,233 of the total 176,846 polling units' results, or 92.87% of them, have been uploaded on the IREV portal as of the time of publishing this report at 05:47 PM on March 7, 2023. This indicates that the IReV portal had not yet received the results from 12,613 nationwide voting locations.
"Thus, it is false to say that Mr. Obi won 19 states, including the FCT, and to ignore the INEC-announced results.