Bola Tinubu declared winner of Nigeria’s elections

Bola Tinubu, the ruling All Progressive Party candidate has been declared the winner of the presidential elections in Nigeria. The Independent National Electoral Commission declared the 70-year-old former Lagos governor the winner of the keenly contested election, beating off competition from Atiku Abubakar of PDP and Labour Party’s Peter Obi.

According to the INEC results in announcing the winner, Bola Tinubu got 8,794,726 votes to beat the PDP’s candidate Atiku Abubakar who had 6,984,520 votes. Peter Obi, the Labour party’s candidate that was very popular with younger population of the voters amassed 6,101,533 to place third.

Per the electoral laws in Nigeria, a candidate can win by getting at least 25% of the votes in two-thirds of the 36 states and the federal capital, Abuja.

Nigeria went to the polls on Saturday to elect a new president who will succeed President Buhari who is in the final days of his second term as leader of the country. Over 80 million voters were expected to cast their votes at the election.

Amidst delays in some areas and sporadic violence at some election stations, the election has received mixed reactions. The main opposition parties, the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) and Labour party have called for fresh elections.

Julius Abure, the Labour party chairman said at a conference as quoted by The Guardian, “The election is irretrievably compromised and we have totally lost faith in the entire process”. “We demand that this sham of an election should be immediately cancelled. We also call for a fresh election to be carried out,” he said at the conference attended by representatives of the PDP.

INEC responded to the claims supervising over an election clothed in malpractices and unfairness. It said aggrieved parties if feeling undone should wait for the conclusion and then head to the courts to seek redress.

“Contrary to the insinuation by both parties, results emanating from the states point to a free, fair and credible process. It is only fair for aggrieved parties to allow the conclusion of the process and approach the courts with their evidences to pursue their cases,” INEC responded.