“They Don’t Even Hide It Anymore” — Viral Video From Deputy Speaker Kalu’s Ward Shows “7, 8, 9, 10… 1,011… 7,400” Vote Count

*As Tinubu Wins APC Primary With 10.9m Votes

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been declared the winner of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary election and confirmed as the party’s candidate for the 2027 general election, polling 10,999,162 votes to defeat his sole challenger, Stanley Osifo, who scored 16,503 votes in a direct primary conducted across 8,809 wards and 774 local government areas nationwide… WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

However, the exercise has been overshadowed by a viral video from the ward of Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, in Bende, Abia State, which showed a counter walking past a short queue of voters and inflating numbers from 1,015 to 7,400 in a matter of seconds a scene that has been widely shared on social media as what critics describe as evidence of the “rigging machinery” the APC is allegedly preparing for the 2027 general elections, and what supporters dismiss as lighthearted grassroots enthusiasm...READ FULL STORY; FROM THE SOURCE.

The video has drawn particular attention because of Kalu’s status as a lawyer and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Nigeria’s second-highest legislative officer making the spectacle from his own ward an especially uncomfortable optic for the ruling party.

The video, which has been widely circulated on X and other social media platforms, captures what appears to be the APC presidential primary exercise at the Bende Ward level in Abia State, conducted under the Option A4 system the traditional open-ballot method where voters physically line up behind the poster of their preferred candidate.

The scene opens with a politician speaking into a microphone beside a banner featuring President Tinubu with the text “2026 Presidential Primaries Bende Ward.” He introduces the two candidates: President Tinubu and a challenger named Stanley, pointing to a lone man standing a few feet away holding a small campaign poster. “The other man there, I don’t know him,” the speaker says, prompting laughter from the crowd.

An overwhelming majority of those present are lined up behind the Tinubu banner, while virtually no one stands behind the opposing candidate.

The counting process is where the video becomes most controversial. A man in a white outfit and a traditional Igbo red cap begins counting the voters individually  “1, 2, 3…”  as he walks down the queue. However, as the numbers climb, he apparently decides the count is not progressing fast enough and hands the counting duty to another man in a black-and-white striped outfit.

The second counter takes over and proceeds to wildly inflate the numbers with every step he takes. He jumps instantly from 1,015 to 7,400. A few steps later, he is in the 9,100s. By the end of what appears to be a relatively short line of voters, he is counting in the 9,200s a mathematical impossibility given the number of people visibly standing in the queue.

The crowd appears to be entertained by the performance, cheering and laughing as the numbers escalate, suggesting the inflation was at least partly performative. However, the question of whether these inflated numbers were subsequently submitted as official results has become the central concern driving the public outcry.

Chairman of the APC Presidential Primary Election Committee, former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim, announced the official results at the Bola Tinubu International Conference Centre in Abuja on Sunday.

According to Anyim, 12,643,306 members were registered for the exercise, 11,069,756 voters were accredited, and 11,015,665 votes were cast. President Tinubu polled 10,999,162 votes, while his sole challenger Stanley Osifo scored 16,503 votes.

“It is therefore my duty as the returning officer for this primary election to declare President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, having satisfied the requirements of the APC Constitution and guidelines and scored the highest number of votes, winner of the presidential primary election and the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress for the 2027 general election,” Anyim declared.

The figure that immediately drew attention was not the margin of victory which was expected given that Tinubu is the incumbent president running against a virtually unknown challenger but the raw vote total itself.

In the 2023 presidential general election, President Tinubu won with approximately 8,794,726 votes cast by the entire Nigerian electorate across all parties and all polling units nationwide. Yet in the APC’s internal primary where only registered party members participate, there is no opposition, and the outcome was never in doubt Tinubu polled 10,999,162 votes.

This means the APC primary produced 2,204,436 more votes for Tinubu than the entire nation gave him in the 2023 general election a statistical outcome that has been widely questioned.

Critics have pointed out the arithmetic improbability: how can a single party’s internal exercise, limited to its own registered members, produce more votes than the candidate received in a nationwide general election involving the entire electorate? The question has fuelled accusations that the primary numbers were systematically inflated at the ward level — with the Bende Ward video being cited as a visible example of how such inflation may have occurred across the country.

Accepting the nomination, President Tinubu struck an emotional tone, acknowledging the pain of his administration’s economic reforms while seeking to demonstrate empathy with ordinary Nigerians.

“I accept with profound humility and gratitude the nomination of our great party, the APC, to stand again as your presidential candidate in the 2027 election,” Tinubu said.

“I know what it takes to reform this nation we met in tatters. If you lost sleep, I’ve lost some too. If you’ve lost weight, I’ve lost some too. But I’ve always remembered one thing: in 2022, I asked for this job. You all supported me and I got it. So I must do it,” the President stated.

Tinubu said he monitored the primary exercise on television after casting his vote in Lagos on Saturday morning, expressing encouragement at the large turnout across the country.

“I was glued to the television after voting. I saw the mammoth crowd in Kano and Kaduna, the city boy walking the streets of Calabar. It was a good feeling to see that there was no bloodshed, no rancour. This is politics in earnest. This is where we want Nigeria, facing one focus,” Tinubu added.

Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma, who spoke after the exercise, described the outcome as evidence of the APC’s growing strength. “APC is growing day by day, more robustly, stronger, more popular, ready to go into any contest at any time,” Uzodimma said, adding that the party had become a credible platform with a verifiable membership register.

The combination of the viral Bende Ward video and the 10.9 million vote total produced a torrent of reactions on social media, with the overwhelming majority expressing a mix of outrage, mockery, and alarm.