There are many indications that the number of votes is enough for Tinubu to have secured the presidency. But Nigeria’s Electoral Commission has yet to confirm whether Tinubu won the 25 percent vote required in two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the capital.
Saturday’s contested election to replace Muhammed Buhari as president was between essentially three candidates.
70-year-old Bola Tinubu, who is standing for the APC (All Progressives Congress), received 8.8 million votes. Opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) got 6.9 million votes and Labor candidate Peter Obi got 6.1 million votes.
The vote count was delayed
Voting in Africa’s most populous country was delayed in many locations, with reports of riots at polling stations. Technical problems that disrupted the uploading of the results have also deepened concerns about election fraud.
The PDP and the Labor Party have since claimed that the vote count was manipulated and called for fresh elections. But the claims have been dismissed by the National Electoral Commission, which stated that the results from the states pointed to a “free, fair and credible process”.
The Electoral Commission is expected to deliver its final results later on Wednesday.
90 million eligible voters
The election was even for the first time since Nigeria ended military rule in 1999. Close to 90 million Nigerians were eligible to vote, and nearly ten million of them were first-time voters.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy and one of the continent’s top oil producers. In addition, the country has one of the world’s largest youth populations, approximately 64 million of the country’s 210 million inhabitants are between the ages of 18 and 35.