Lagos – Bola Tinubu, the candidate for Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party, has been declared victor in the country’s disputed weekend presidential election, electoral authorities said on Wednesday.
Tinubu, 70, a former Lagos governor , won 8.8 million votes against 6.9 million for opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Atiku Abubakar and 6.1 million for Labour Party’s Peter Obi, according to final results.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) confirmed Tinubu also secured the required 25% of votes in two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and capital, a threshold to be confirmed president.
Ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu has won Nigeria’s disputed presidential election.
70-year-old Tinubu got 36% of the vote,.
His main rival Atiku Abubakar polled 29%, and Labour’s Peter Obi popular with the youth got 25%.
The opposition has called the election a sham! pic.twitter.com/gPPpAitEhX
— Hopewell Chin’ono (@daddyhope) March 1, 2023
Even before the final tallies, Labour and PDP had already called for the vote to be cancelled, alleging massive manipulation of the results. It was not clear whether they would take their case to court.
Tinubu, 70, a long-time political kingmaker who ran on his experience as Lagos governor from 1999 to 2007, campaigned saying “It’s my turn” to govern Africa’s largest economy.
He promised “renewed hope” but faced questions from rivals over his health, past graft accusations and ties to Buhari, who many critics say failed in his promise to make Nigeria safer.
Supporters cheered and danced to Afrobeats music at the APC’s campaign headquarters in the capital Abuja as the final results were being tallied in the early hours of Wednesday.
“He had done it before, and we know that he will do better than what he did in Lagos,” said supporter Adenike Mutiat Abubakar, 43. “He’s the man of the people, so that’s why everybody wants him.”
Tight race
The election was a tight race for the first time since Nigeria ended military rule in 1999, after Labour Party’s Obi, 61, drew younger voters with his message of change from his political old guard rivals.
PDP’s Abubakar, a 76-year-old businessman and former vice president, lost his sixth attempt at the presidency.
Saturday’s voting was mostly peaceful, but was troubled by long delays at many polling stations and some intimidation by thugs, while technical hitches disrupted the uploading of results to INEC’s central website, fuelling concerns over vote rigging.
“The election is irretrievably compromised,” Labour Party chairman Julius Abure said on Tuesday. “We demand that this sham of an election should be immediately cancelled.”
INEC introduced biometric voter identification technology for the first time to improve transparency.
ALSO READ | WATCH | Nigeria’s opposition parties call for cancellation of ‘sham’ election
But opposition parties said failures in the system to upload tallies allowed for ballot manipulation and disparities in the results from the manual counts at local polling stations.
INEC dismissed the opposition allegations. “Contrary to the insinuation by both parties, results emanating from the States point to a free, fair and credible process,” it said.
It said parties should allow the process to run its course and then take their claims to court.
But international observers, including from the European Union, noted major logistical problems, disenfranchised voters and a lack of transparency by INEC.
One surprise result was Obi’s victory in Lagos, the state with the largest number of registered voters and the traditional bastion of APC’s Tinubu, known as the “Godfather of Lagos”.
After a grassroots and social media campaign, Obi, a former Anambra State governor, managed to attract voters with a message he offered change from Nigeria’s establishment politics.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Twitter/@daddyhope
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