The ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu has been declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) as the winner of 2023 presidential election.
As BBC reports, the 70-year-old veteran politician through his All Progressives Congress (APC) party generated 8,794,726 which is equivalent to 37 percent of the votes, official results from Inec show.
His main competitor Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP) got 6,984,520 totaling 29 percent, and Labour’s Party (LP) Peter Obi managed to get 6,101,533 votes which are 25 percent.
The APC party leader Tinubu urged his competitors to accept the result and be part of inclusive developments in the country, but the Labour Party Obi said it was taking legal action to annul his victory.
Bola Tinubu won most of the other states in his home region of the southwest, where he is known as a “political godfather” for helping to put others into office.
He campaigned for the presidency sit under the slogan; “Emi lo kan”, which means it is my turn in the Yoruba language.
The celebration has been reported in his strongholds in the south-western states due to the presidential win.
Traditional drummers lined the streets, beating their drums for excited dancers in Osun, while supporters marched to a live band in Ekiti.
The normally bustling streets of Lagos are relatively quiet on Wednesday, March 1 and the usual rush-hour traffic has not been seen and some shops, businesses, and banks have not opened due to fear of violence.
Life has returned to normal in places that did not support Tinubu, including the capital, Abuja, and Kano in the north.
In north-eastern Adamawa state, home to Atiku Abubakar, there is an air of disappointment in the main city of Yola, but grudging acceptance that after several attempts for the presidency, it is time for the former vice-president to move on with his life.
On the other hand, Peter Obi’s stronghold in south-eastern Anambra state, where he once served as governor, is quiet but there is an underlying sense of bitter anger. Many feel frustrated at what they see as a fraudulent electoral process.
“I take this opportunity to appeal to my fellow contestants to let us team up together and bring developments to the people of Nigeria. It is the only nation we have. It is one country and we must build it together,” Bola Tinubu said in a televised speech.
He added that they had the right to challenge the results in court but said that the lapses in the election “were relatively few in number and were immaterial to affect the outcome of this election”.
At a news conference later, Peter Obi’s running-mate Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed urged his supporters to stay calm as other alternatives is being looked upon.
Labour’s Party lawyers are “putting the papers together” to challenge Tinubu’s presidency victory in court, he added.
According to official results, voter turnout was 27 percent, one of the lowest since the end of military rule in 1999.
With about 8.8 million votes cast for Bola Tinubu, he was the choice of less than 10 percent of the record 93 million Nigerians who registered to vote, helped by a divided opposition.
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A newly introduced electronic voting system seems to have eliminated the ballot stuffing that happened in the past and helped present a more accurate picture of the voting population.
But given that 87 million people actually collected their voter cards before election day – which was not an easy process and involved queuing for hours – it is more likely that problems on voting day, rather than voter apathy, was responsible for the low number of ballots cast.
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In some opposition strongholds, voting did not take place at all and there were also cases of ballot-box snatching and voter intimidation in southern states including Rivers, Lagos, and Delta.
President Muhammadu Buhari is stepping down after two terms in office, marked by economic weakening and growing insecurity around the country – from an Islamist insurgency in the north-east to a nationwide crisis of kidnapping for ransom and separatist attacks in the south-east.
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