Claim: The INEC chairman said President Tinubu did not win the 2023 general election. Verdict: False Background Multiple posts have been making the rounds on social media, particularly Facebook, attributed to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, stating that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not win the 2023
Claim: The INEC chairman said President Tinubu did not win the 2023 general election.
Verdict: False
Background
Multiple posts have been making the rounds on social media, particularly Facebook, attributed to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, stating that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not win the 2023 general election.
The post, which was first sighted on the Facebook page with the username Igbo Times Magazine, quotes the Professor of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), President Bola Tinubu. The controversial claim also indicated that the INEC chairman said his decision was because his family was being threatened.
The post reads, “JUST IN: I knew Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not win the 2023 presidential election, but I declared him the winner because my life was in danger.” – Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
“I want to sincerely apologise to Nigerians. The truth is, I knew Tinubu was not the real winner of the 2023 presidential election. However, the pressure and threats I faced were overwhelming. My life, and the lives of my family members, were in serious danger,” Yakubu admitted.
He added, “It was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever made. I feared that chaos and violence would erupt if I declared someone other than Tinubu as the winner. But that doesn’t justify what I did. I deeply regret allowing fear to influence my duty to the Nigerian people.”
The claim elicited reactions and comments from several viewers, such as, “Now that you have said this, are we safe?” Posterity will judge you”, “Guy, you are a mad man no get sense god will punish you thank God”, “ MEDICINES AFTER DEATH, YOU HAVE COLLECTED BRIBE AND BUILDING NOW YOU ARE CONFESSING YOUR NONSENSE,TAAA,ANUOFIA”, among others.
Aside from Igbo Times Magazine, additional keyword searches to find a similar post on social media revealed that the claim was also posted here, here, and here, with each page receiving reactions and comments accusing the INEC chairman of distorting the credibility of Nigeria’s electoral system.
This post is coming two years after the 2023 general election, which was keenly contested by 18 presidential candidates, but the race was intense between three political parties: the All Progressives Congress, the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party.
Before the election, the electoral commission had promised to transmit the election result electronically, but the commission later failed to fulfil its promise by failing to transmit the result of the poll. This led to a call for the cancellation of the poll across the country; however, the electoral chairman declared the candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu of the election.
As a result, there have been allegations that the electoral commission was compromised. This development might lead to the admission of electoral malpractice in the country.
Due to the magnitude of this post and how it can undermine the country’s electoral system, NDR subjects the claim to verification.
Verification
NDR conducted a keyword search on the claim to confirm its veracity and to determine whether the information disseminated on Facebook is reported as claimed on Facebook.
The outcome of our keyword search revealed that the statement attributed to the INEC chairman that President Bola Tinubu was not the winner of the 2023 general election, but he was only forced to declare him the winner because of the threats to his family, was not published on any reputable media platforms. This suggests a lack of valid evidence for the claim.
We also subjected the links attached to the claims here to Whois, a digital platform used to verify the details of websites and their registration data, contact details, nameservers, DNS records, and more for any domain. The digital platform resulted in no data for the link because the website does not have an active domain.
Also, when we clicked on the website links attached to the claim to further examine the content, we were redirected to a gambling connection with the claim about the winner of the 2023 general election.
Conclusion
The claim that INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, said President Bola Tinubu did not win the 2023 general election is false.
