Saraki concedes defeat

Nigeria’s senate president, Bukola Saraki, has conceded defeat after losing his reelection bid as the senator representing Kwara Central senatorial district.

“I wish the candidates that emerged in the Kwara polls all the best in their attempts to serve our people,” Saraki said on Tuesday.

“It is my prayer that the good people of Kwara State will always have the best from any government both at the state and federal levels,” he added.

Saraki lost to All Progressives Congress’s Ibrahim Yahya Oloriegbe.

Saraki polled 68,994 votes to emerge a distant second to the candidate of the APC who got 123,808 votes.

Saraki said although the election was “generally peaceful” it was marred by “multiple voting, over-voting and other discrepancies” across the state.

The defeat marked the first time the politician has lost an election since his father, second republic leader of the Nigerian Senate late Olusola Saraki, influenced his election as the governor of the largely agrarian Kwara State in 2003.

Saraki, a London-trained medical doctor, was first elected to the Nigerian senate in 2011 after serving out two terms of eight years as governor — with corruption allegations often hanging around his neck.