Ruling party’s candidate Bola Tinubu was declared the winner of Nigeria’s presidential election on Wednesday and shortly afterwards thanked his supporters and appealed to his rivals, who are already demanding re-election in Africa’s most populous country.
The announcement by electoral authorities overnight is likely to result in a court challenge from the weekend poll’s second and third-highest candidates, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi.
Abubakar also came second in the last poll in 2019 and appealed the results before his lawsuit was finally dropped.
Tinubu’s Congress Progressive Party urged the opposition to accept Tuesday’s defeat and not cause problems after calling for a reconsideration, saying the delay in uploading election results had sparked irregularities.
Tinubu won 37% of the vote, or around 8.8 million, while the opposition’s main candidate, Abubakar, won 29% with around 7 million.
Obi, in third place, won 25% with about 6.1 million, according to results released live by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
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The President-elect thanked his supporters in the capital Abuja after announcing his victory and addressed his political opponents in a conciliatory message.
The victory announcement came after 4:00 a.m., but celebrations had already begun Tuesday evening at the ruling party’s National Secretariat, where Tinubu’s supporters had gathered in anticipation of the victory.
Tinubu, 70, is the former governor of Lagos state, home to the Nigerian megacity of the same name. However, he lost the state to Obi in Saturday’s election, who has attracted a large following among young voters eager for change.
The parties now have three weeks to appeal the result, but the election can only be annulled if it is proven that the national electoral body failed to comply with the law and acted in a way that could have altered the result.
Nigeria’s Supreme Court has never annulled a presidential election, although legal challenges are common, including from outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari, who has spent months fighting his previous electoral defeats to no avail.
Nigeria’s presidential election has been closely watched as the country is not only the continent’s largest economy but also one of the continent’s largest oil producers.
