Wike dares Obi’s supporters to show proof of winning Rivers in 2023

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has dared Peter Obi’s supporters to show the official result sheet that proves the Labour Party candidate won Rivers State in the 2023 presidential election.

Wike did not hold back in dismissing claims from Obi's supporters, known as Obidients, that their candidate won the state. He said these claims only exist in their minds.

The former governor of Rivers State spoke during an interview on Monday on TVC’s Journalists’ Hangout. He was asked about his political influence in Rivers and the claim that Obi won in 2023.

“They won by their own imagination. Who did INEC declare to have won?” Wike asked.

He went on to challenge anyone who disagrees with the declared result to bring out the proof for their claims.

“Let them produce that result sheet that says Obi won,” he said.

Wike also questioned why Obi’s supporters did not present their evidence during the legal challenge to the 2023 presidential election.

“When they went to the tribunal, were they able to defend their claim?” he asked.

The minister stressed that claims made on social media do not decide the winner of any election.

“You can win on social media; I’m not interested in social media winning,” he said.

He pointed out that you can't determine the election results based on observations from just a few polling units in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State.

“You don’t stay in one place in Port Harcourt and say Obi has won,” he stated.

Wike reminded everyone that Rivers has 23 local government areas. He said the total results must be considered before anyone can declare a winner.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress as the winner of the presidential election held on 25 February 2023 in Rivers.

In Rivers, Tinubu secured 231,591 votes, while Obi got 175,071 votes. The candidate from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, came in third with 88,468 votes.

These numbers come from results gathered from all 23 local government areas in the state. Tinubu won in 14 of the LGAs, Obi won five, and Atiku won four.

Despite this, Obi’s supporters continue to challenge the outcome. They point to individual polling unit results and claim there were irregularities during the collation process.

Wike was the governor of Rivers when the 2023 presidential election took place. Though he was a member of the PDP, he supported Tinubu, who was the APC presidential candidate at that time.

Tinubu won Rivers by a margin of 56,520 votes over Obi.

Wike has often linked Tinubu’s success in the state to the political structure he had in place back then.

However, PREMIUM TIMES checked the presidential election results uploaded to INEC’s Results Viewing Portal (IReV) for Rivers State. They found a big difference in the results from Obio/Akpor Local Government Area. While INEC's figures showed Tinubu winning there with 80,239 votes against Obi’s 3,829, PREMIUM TIMES found that Obi actually got 73,311 votes, while Tinubu had 17,158 votes based on results from 1,116 of the area’s 1,211 polling units. This represents about 94.13 percent of the polling units in the area.

The newspaper also reported cases of changes and errors on some result sheets, where figures were altered in favor of the APC. They used the figures as they appeared on the uploaded sheets for their tally.

This difference was crucial because Obi was leading Tinubu across Rivers before the Obio/Akpor results were declared. With results from 21 of the 23 LGAs, Obi had 169,414 votes, while Tinubu had 148,979, leading by over 20,000 votes.

But the INEC-announced Obio/Akpor figures turned things around and contributed to Tinubu being declared the winner in Rivers, with 231,591 votes against Obi’s 175,071. Wike comes from this local government area and was once its chairman.

Therefore, PREMIUM TIMES concluded that the results they reviewed from IReV indicate that Obi, not Tinubu, won the state. They also noted that some results were missing, unclear, or not properly uploaded, and they could not independently verify every polling unit.