Ayodele Fayose, former governor of Ekiti State, has claimed that incumbent Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), polled 1,279,000 votes in Katsina during the 2019 presidential election.
Fayose, a member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), stated this on Tuesday, March 7, 2023, when featured on TVC’s Your View.
Advancing his argument that the February 25 election was not rigged, Fayose said, “If you look at that election, you will see that the North reasonably voted for Atiku. You will equally see that Asiwaju was a recurring decimal..second position in most of the places. That was what gave him the spread”.
“The fact remains that in Katsina where the president comes from, the president got 1,279,000 votes in 2019. This time, Atiku won by 7,000 votes which means over 1.2 million votes were reversed. So is the case in some of the states in the North like Yobe that has never been won by PDP before.”
Claim: Muhammadu Buhari had 1,279,000 votes in Katsina during the 2019 presidential election
Verification
The CDD Election War Room checked and found that the claim is false.
Buhari contested the February 23 election to seek a second four-year term on the platform of the APC. His closest rival was Atiku Abubakar, who was the candidate of the PDP.
Premium Times reported on February 25, 2019, that Buhari polled 1,232,133 votes to win in Katsina, his home state, as announced by Fatima Mukhtar, a professor, who was the state collation officer for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
This was also reported by the Thisday newspaper, Punch, Guardian, Daily Post, and Daily Nigeria.
In 2023, the APC polled 482,283 votes while PDP had 489,041 votes. This does not show a reversal of 1.2 million votes as Fayose claimed.
Verdict
The claim by Ayodele Fayose that Muhammadu Buhari polled 1,279,000 votes in Katsina during the 2019 presidential election is false; multiple reports show that Buhari garnered 1,232,133 votes as announced by the state collation officer.