Abuja, Nigeria –
Nigerians woke up to a new president on Wednesday, with ruling party candidate Bola Tinub declared the winner of the country’s elections. It appealed for a settlement with its rival.
Last night’s announcement by election officials could lead to court challenges by Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, who finished second and third in the weekend’s polls. Abubakar also appealed the result, in which he finished second in his last poll in 2019, but his case was ultimately dismissed.
Tinub’s ruling All Progressive Congress party on Tuesday demanded a re-vote to accept its defeat and avoid causing trouble for the opposition, saying the delay in uploading the election results had created room for fraud.
Tinubu won 37% of the vote, or about 8.8 million votes, while the main opposition candidate, Abubakar, won 29% with about 7 million votes. Third-place finisher Obi received about 6.1 million votes, according to the results announced live by the Independent National Electoral Commission, where he won 25% of the votes.
After the victory was announced, the president-elect thanked supporters in the capital Abuja and struck a tone of reconciliation in a message aimed at political opponents.
“I take this opportunity to appeal to my fellow competitors to team up together,” Tinub said. It must be built to
The announcement of his victory came just after 4 a.m., but celebrations had already begun late Tuesday at the ruling party’s State Secretariat, where Tinubu’s supporters had gathered in anticipation of his victory.
“No other record can match his record!” Babafemi Akin said excitedly about the prospects for the Tinub government. “I am confident he will do well.”
Tinub, 70, is the former governor of Lagos State, home to the Nigerian metropolis of the same name. But he lost to Obi in Saturday’s election, and Obi gained strong support among young voters eager for change.
The hard-fought election has redrawn Nigeria’s constituencies and produced results that differed significantly from past polls. This is the first time a president has taken office with less than his 50% of the vote, and four candidates won more than his one million votes. says the analyst.
“We will have to work hard to get the majority of the support that favors one of the other candidates, especially young people, his Muslims and the Christian groups who opposed his Muslim ticket, and again Igbo in the southeast feel denied the presidency,” said Nnamdi Obasi, senior adviser for Nigeria at the International Crisis Group.
From the outset, Tinub must contend with challenges to his legitimacy, so he must ensure an inclusive government and focus firmly on rebuilding national cohesion, he added.
One of the reasons for Tinub’s victory was a split in the opposition votes and the strong pressure his party was putting on people to vote, said the Africa executive at consultancy Eurasia Group. Director Amaka Ankh said.
Nigeria’s current president, Muhammadu Buhari, congratulated his successor in a statement on Wednesday but said the election was not perfect. But none of the issues registered represent a challenge to electoral freedom and fairness,” he said.
Political parties now have three weeks to appeal the results, but the election proved election officials across the country disobeyed the law and acted in ways that could change the outcome. It can only be disabled if
Nigeria’s Supreme Court has never overturned a presidential election, but court challenges are common. Among them is Mr. Buhari, who has persevered through past election defeats for months to no avail.
The West African regional bloc, known as ECOWAS, has urged political parties to exercise maximum restraint on their supporters and to use provocative language only to “exacerbate political tensions, divisions and violence at this critical stage.” Asked to refrain from using. Group by statement.
Nigeria’s presidential election has been in the spotlight as the country is not only the continent’s largest economy but also one of the continent’s largest oil producers.
Observers say Saturday’s election was largely peaceful, but delays forced some voters to wait until the next day to vote. It became difficult to get to the polling place.
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Associated Press journalist Taiwo Ajayi in Abuja, Nigeria. Krista Larsson in Dakar, Senegal. Contributed by Sam Mednick of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
