No presidential candidate will get more than 55% of votes, says YIAGA

Youth Initiative for Advocacy Growth and Advancement (YIAGA) Africa, has postulated that the presidential election result, now narrowed to President Muhammadu Buhari and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, will be a close call.

The civil society organisation said neither Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) nor Atiku of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would garner more than 55 per cent of the total votes cast.It had also said that there would be no run-off for the presidential elections because a clear winner would emerge.

In a statement in Abuja yesterday,YIAGA urged all stakeholders to respect the commission’s constitutional power and refrain from declaring election results.

The group also enjoined citizens to maintain the peace as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) collates the results, promising to continue monitoring the collation to the end.According to the statement, as soon as INEC announces the official results, YIAGA Africa will convene a press conference to comment on the accuracy of the election results.

The group deployed 3,906 observers throughout the country, including 3,030 Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) observers to monitor the February 23 elections. With the methodology, YIAGA Africa said it was able to independently verify the accuracy of the official presidential election results announced by INEC.