Festus Keyamo, the principal spokesperson for the Presidential Campaign Council of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), made some controversial claims in an attempt to defend the victory of Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate in the February 25 polls.
Keyamo made these claims in a post-election interview on TVC earlier in the week. CDD Election War Room checked some of these claims and here is what we found.
Claim I: Tinubu won his votes from all six regions in the country
Verification: Based on the results as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tinubu won votes from all the six-political regions the least being the southeast with 127,605 votes.
The votes via regions are as follows: Southwest 2,279,407 Northcentral 1,760,993, Northeast 1,185,458 Northwest 2,652,235, Southsouth 799,957 and South-east 127,605.
Every other candidate in the top four also won votes from all six regions in the country.
Verdict: True
Claim II: It was only Tinubu that won at least one state in five different regions except one
Verification: APC won four states in the southwest, one state in the south-south, none in the southeast, four states in the Northcentral, two states in the Northeast, and one state in the Northwest.
Verdict: True
Claim III: Tinubu won three regions outright and came at least second and never took third in any region.
Verification: APC won four states out of six states in the Southwest, while the Labour Party and the PDP won one state each — Lagos and Osun.
Out of six states in the South-south, APC won just Rivers. The PDP won two states while the Labour party won three states. LP clinched all five states in the Southeast.
In the Northcentral, the APC won four states and LP won three states. The APC won two states — Jigawa and Zamfara — in the Northwest, while the PDP won four states and the NNPP won 1 state.
In the Northeast, the APC only won one state, and the PDP clinched five states.
In total, the APC was only able to clinch three regions, the Southwest, the Northcentral, and the Northwest. While the PDP won more states in the Northwest, the total number of votes in the region puts the APC ahead of the PDP.
The APC did not come third in any region, the party was either first or second in every region. Hence, Keyamo’s claim is true.
Verdict: True
Claim IV: Keyamo said in areas where Asiwaju lost, it was very very close.
Verification: The difference between the APC and the LP which won the election in the southeastern region was a wide very wide margin. In the region, Peter Obi of the Labour Party won more than 12 times the amount of votes Tinubu garnered in the region.
Also, the difference between the LP and the APC in the Southsouth was not “very very close” as Keyamo claims. LP won the region by more than 400,000 votes.
Verdict: False
Claim V: Those inroads that the Labour Party made into the Southsouth and southeast were PDP strongholds. They hardly scratched the APC.
Verification: According to the 2015 and 2019 election results, the PDP dominated the south-south, southeast and northcentral states.
Verdict: True
Claim VI: “There was no time we wrote off Obi, we projected him to decimate the PDP and he did,” Keyamo said.
Verification: Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state and member of the APC, in an interview with TVC described the LP candidate as a “Nollywood actor”.
“Peter Obi will sweep the south-eastern states; he will do well in south-south; where else? He’s not polling well in the southwest other than a drop in the ocean in Lagos,” he said.
“Peter Obi is a Nollywood actor and that’s all he will be. This election is between the APC and PDP because they have the footprint; they have the spread.”
The APC, PDP, and LP all won 12 states each, in the presidential polls.
Verdict: False
Claim VII: We did not see Tinubu in any Mosque or Church campaigning, Keyamo said.
Verification: While Tinubu was not seen campaigning in any church or Mosque, Asiwaju was photographed at the JIBWIS National Mosque, Abuja, where he observed the Juma’at prayers alongside other APC candidates.
Verdict: Partly true
Claim VII: Atiku didn’t get 10% of the votes in Kano. The difference between Tinubu and Atiku was about half a million votes, Keyamo claimed.
Verification: PDP got 131,716 votes, (7.74%) in Kano state while the APC got 517,341 votes (30.4%). The difference in votes between the APC and PDP was 385,625. Keyamo exaggerated the gap between the APC and the PDP in Kano state.
Verdict: Partly true.