Mr Tinubu was declared the winner of the presidential election in Rivers State, with Atiku finishing second and Peter Obi third. However, the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Peter Obi, actually won the 25 February presidential vote in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, according to results uploaded on the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV). The portal shows Obi receiving 73 311 votes in the area, far surpassing Tinubu’s 17 158 votes. INEC’s declaration, which listed Tinubu with 80 239 votes, Obi with 3 829, Atiku with 368, and Rabiu Kwankwaso with 161, contradicts these figures.
Premium Times examined the results from 1 116 of Obio/Akpor’s 1 211 polling units—about 94.13 % of the total—available on IReV as of 16 March. Some units were illegible or not yet uploaded, accounting for roughly 5.87 % of the area. The newspaper also noted that a few polling units showed altered figures favoring the APC; for example, the Rumuorluoji Open Space II unit originally recorded 17 votes for the APC, but a “2” was added to make it 217, while the LP’s 227 was changed to 027. Similar tampering was observed in 34 units in Rumuokoro Ward, where LP numbers were erased and replaced with APC figures. Despite these discrepancies, Premium Times tallied the numbers as they appeared on the result sheets.
In some cases, the results uploaded were for National Assembly elections rather than the presidential race. The Civic Centre Hall unit in Rumuigbo Ward, for instance, displayed a House of Representatives result instead of the presidential tally. Premium Times also reviewed results from Degema Local Government Area, confirming Tinubu’s win there, though the total was slightly lower than INEC’s announced figure. Some Degema units remained unreadable or unuploaded.
Initially, Obi led Tinubu by over 23 000 votes when INEC announced results from 21 of the 23 local government areas in the state. Obi had 169 414 votes to Tinubu’s 148 979, with Obi’s strongest performance in Port Harcourt City (62 451 votes). At that stage, results were still pending from Obio/Akpor—Governor Nyesom Wike’s home area—and Degema. When Obio/Akpor’s results were finally released, INEC reported Tinubu with 80 239 votes against Obi’s 3 829, shifting the lead to the APC and leading to Tinubu’s overall declaration as the winner in Rivers State.
Statewide, INEC’s final figures gave Tinubu 231 591 votes, Obi 175 071, Atiku 88 468, and Kwankwaso 1 322. The collation officer for the presidential election in Rivers adjourned the process amid alleged threats to his life from political supporters, and reports emerged of attacks and voter suppression. Governor Wike, a PDP member, had previously broken with the party’s national leadership over the choice of a northern or southern successor to President Buhari. After losing the PDP presidential primary, Wike endorsed Tinubu, arguing that, with Buhari from the north, the next president should come from the south—though both Tinubu and Obi are southern candidates.
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