Ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu won Nigeria’s highly disputed weekend election, electoral authorities said on Wednesday, securing the former Lagos governor the presidency of Africa’s most populous democracy.

With President Muhammadu Buhari stepping down after two terms, many Nigerians hoped Saturday’s vote would usher in a leader capable of tackling the country’s widening insecurity, economic malaise and growing poverty.

Tinubu, 70, the candidate for the All Progressives Congress (APC) party, won 8.8 million votes against 6.9 million for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Atiku Abubakar and 6.1 million for the Labour Party’s Peter Obi, according to final results.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC, confirmed Tinubu also secured the required 25 percent of votes in two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and capital, a threshold to be confirmed president.

“Tinubu, Bola Ahmed, of the APC, having satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected,” INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu said.

Even before the final tallies, Labour and PDP had already called for the vote to be cancelled, alleging massive manipulation of the results. It was not clear whether they would take their case to court.

Tinubu, 70, a longtime political kingmaker who ran on his experience as Lagos governor from 1999 to 2007, campaigned saying “It’s my turn” to govern Africa’s largest economy.

He promised “Renewed Hope” but faced questions from rivals over his health, past graft accusations and ties to Buhari, who many critics say failed in his promise to make Nigeria safer.

Supporters cheered and danced to Afrobeats music at the APC’s campaign headquarters in the capital Abuja as the final results were being tallied in the early hours of Wednesday.

“He had done it before, and we know that he will do better than what he did in Lagos,” said supporter Adenike Mutiat Abubakar, 43. “He’s the man of the people, so that’s why everybody wants him.”

Tight race

The election was a tight race for the first time since Nigeria ended military rule in 1999, after the Labour Party’s Obi, 61, drew younger voters with his message of change from his political old-guard rivals.

PDP’s Abubakar, a 76-year-old businessman and former vice president, lost his sixth attempt at the presidency.

Saturday’s voting was mostly peaceful, but was troubled by long delays at many polling stations and some intimidation by thugs, while technical hitches disrupted the uploading of results to the INEC’s central website, fuelling concerns over vote rigging.

“The election is irretrievably compromised,” Labour Party chairman Julius Abure told reporters on Tuesday. “We demand that this sham of an election should be immediately cancelled.”

The INEC introduced biometric voter identification technology for the first time at the national level and its IReV central database for uploading results to improve transparency.

But opposition parties said failures in the system to upload tallies allowed for ballot manipulation and disparities in the results from the manual counts at local polling stations.

Nigerian elections have often been marred by vote rigging, ballot buying, violence and clashes between rival parties.

But the INEC dismissed opposition allegations.

“Contrary to the insinuation by both parties, results emanating from the States point to a free, fair and credible process,” the INEC said.

It said parties should allow the process to run its course and then take their claims to court.

But international observers, including from the European Union, noted major logistical problems, disenfranchised voters and a lack of transparency by the INEC.

In 2019, the INEC was forced to delay the election by a week just hours before voting started. PDP’s Abubakar cried fraud when Buhari beat him that time around, but the country’s Supreme Court later tossed out his claim.

Lagos surprise

One surprise result was Obi’s victory in Lagos, the state with the largest number of registered voters and the traditional bastion of APC’s Tinubu, known as the “Godfather of Lagos”.

After a grassroots and social media campaign, Obi, a former Anambra State governor, managed to attract voters with a message that he offered change from Nigeria’s establishment politics.

The state’s eponymous megacity has put Nigeria on the cultural map with its glitzy Nollywood film scene and global Afrobeats stars like Burna Boy, but nearly half of Nigerians live in poverty and inflation is in double digits.

Security challenges awaiting Nigeria’s next leader are huge.

A grinding Islamist insurgency in the northeast has displaced more than 2 million, bandit militias carry out mass abductions in the northwest and separatists attack police in the southeast.

Nigeria is Africa’s top oil producer but struggles with sporadic fuel shortages, huge energy import bills due to a lack of refineries and crude theft from its wells and pipelines.

Source: AFP

Tensions rose Monday during the counting of Nigeria’s hotly contested presidential election when representatives from the parties of the two main opposition candidates walked out in anger from the center where state-by-state results were being announced.

With 11 of Nigeria’s 36 states having reported as of Monday evening, ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu was leading with 46% of the 6.7 million counted votes so far. He was followed by the main opposition party candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who had 29%, and third party candidate Peter Obi, who had 20%.

In order to win, the candidate who leads the popular vote must also win at least a quarter of the votes in two-thirds of the states and the capital, Abuja.

Tempers flared Monday in Abuja where representatives of all the parties awaited the results. The two leading opposition parties claimed there were disparities between the results announced by the election commission and what their representatives learned at the polling stations.

“We are Nigerians and must defend our rights,” said Dino Melaye, a representative of the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, led by Abubakar. Nigeria’s electoral law allows party representatives or agents to raise concerns about results while they are being announced by the election commission.

The country’s election chief, Mahmood Yakubu, dismissed claims of irregularities and said the results were authenticated by electoral officials.

Representatives for Nigeria’s ruling party accused the opposition parties of inciting violence and called on security forces to restrain them.

“If they don’t, a situation may well arise that none of us want, whereby people actually act on this incitement and begin to kill other people,” said Femi Fani-Kayode, former minister and part of the ruling party’s presidential campaign council. “And if that happens, I assure you it will be very difficult to restrain those on our own side not to retaliate.”

The ruling party pointed to Obi’s victory in the heavily coveted Lagos state, which is home to Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, as proof that the vote was free and fair. It was a particularly hard loss for ruling party candidate Tinubu, who was once the governor of the state.

It was not immediately known how many ballots were cast in the other 25 states or which candidates stood to gain the most votes from those results.

After the last presidential election in 2019, it took four days for a victor to be declared. A runoff election will be held if no candidate secures at least a quarter of the votes from two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the capital city, in addition to receiving the highest number of votes.

On Monday, the African Union observer mission said voting had been delayed in more than 80% of polling units mainly because of logistical challenges caused by Nigeria’s currency swap program. The redesign of the Nigerian bank note, the naira, caused cash shortages nationwide, and voters and poll workers had difficulties getting to polling stations Saturday. Voters in some states had to wait until late in the evening to cast ballots, while in other states the election continued Sunday.

Observers from the missions of the African Union and the West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS said the election was generally “encouraging” except for isolated cases of violence that disrupted voting in some states.

Isolated cases of violence on election day led to the deaths of nine civilians, according to the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence company, pointing to a far more peaceful election than in previous years, when there were more deaths.

“Going by this trajectory, we are likely to have fewer deaths” during the election period compared to 2019,” said Confidence MacHarry, a security analyst with SBM Intelligence.

By Engelis Okesack Besong

Peter Obi, an outsider presidential candidate, has defeated Bola “The Godfather of Lagos” Tinubu in Lagos.

The defeat will come as a personal blow to Tinubu. He is a former two-term governor of the state who is referred to by his critics and allies as the “Godfather of Lagos” for his seemingly total political control over the country’s most populous state. The self-proclaimed “City Boy” had based his candidacy on his own perceived popularity in Lagos, promising at rallies to do for Nigeria what he did in Lagos.

For young people especially, Obi’s victory in the state, and the huge embarrassment it will cause Tinubu’s APC party, will be seen as a considerable consolation prize should the third-party candidate not win the presidency.

“I have a simple question, if your nickname is “city boy” and you lose the city, what would your new nickname be?” Modupe Odele, a prominent activist during the #EndSARS demonstrations wrote.

A popular Nigerian actor and activist known as Mr Macaroni said Obi’s victory was a victory for people power. “Nigerians, the power will always be yours anytime you are ready to take it!!!” he wrote on Twitter.

Lagos was at the centre of 2020’s #EndSARS protests, where thousands of young people took to the streets to protest against corruption and police brutality. Ever since the demonstrations ended after authorities allegedly shot at peaceful demonstrators in Lagos’ upscale Lekki neighbourhood, activists have worked to organise towards removing APC from statewide office.  The effort will continue in two weeks when the state’s governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, one of Tinubu’s closest allies, will be up for re-election.

As residents voted on Saturday and word of a high turnout spread, there were widespread reports of violence and intimidation at polling stations across the city, specifically in areas that were believed to favour Obi.

The violence in the city meant many Lagosians chose to stay at home on Monday, with some schools closed. 

The shock result comes as Nigerians await the final results of its presidential election.

Nigeria’s voting body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has been severely criticised for the collapse of its much-touted new digital reporting technology, which has meant that the votes have been declared days later than was promised. The new system was meant to ensure officers at each of the country’s 171,000 polling stations could report results online in real time.

As a result, most states are yet to declare their results almost two days after the election. In a statement on Sunday, INEC said the untested system had struggled to cope with the demand on its servers.

Source: Vice.com

The rise of Peter Obi in the campaign for Nigeria’s presidential election on February 25 has shaken up the country’s politics, hitherto dominated by two major parties since the end of military rule in 1999. But analysts say that Obi still faces an uphill struggle.

Promising a different way of doing things, Obi hopes to defeat the two favourites and political heavyweights from traditional parties: Atiku Aboubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

With speeches hailed as fresh and unifying – but criticised as populist by his detractors – the 61-year-old businessman has caught the attention of Nigeria’s young population, 60 percent of whom are under the age of 25.

“The current government is in a bad situation, and the way many young people see it is that people like Abubakar and Tinubu are part of the problem,” said Dele Babalola, a Nigeria expert at Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent. “Obe is 61 but he’s the youngest of the candidates [the other two being in their 70s] and a fresh face.”

‘Obidients’                                                                                                                                                            

Over the course of the five-month presidential campaign, Obi has gone from minor curiosity to credible candidate, with vast social media support amongst Nigeria’s youth turbocharging his standing. Obi has also enjoyed endorsements from prominent Nigerian figures such as ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and renowned novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

As Nigeria endures an economic slump and a troubled security situation, Obi’s supporters (nicknamed “Obidients”) see him as an antidote to a political class they accuse of corruption and bad governance.

In this context, Obi has cultivated an image as the picture of integrity and prudence. “I have two children, they are graduates, they have never participated in any public life. I have a son that is going to be 29, 30 soon, he doesn’t own a car because he has to buy his own car, not me,” Obi said in a speech last year to his supporters’ applause.

Obi’s candidacy first emerged in October 2020 as Nigeria saw the #EndSARS protest movement – in which young demonstrators demanded the disbandment of the SARS police unit they accused of violence and saw as benefitting from total immunity, a movement Obi largely supported.

The #EndSARS movement then took its demands further, denouncing corruption and economic inequality. These are burning issues in a country where oil revenues lavishly reward a small proportion of Nigerians while nearly half of the population live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.

A Nigerian Macron?

Born to Christian parents from the Igbo ethnic group – Nigeria’s third-largest – Obi’s background is a common one in the country’s economic elite: studies in Lagos, at Harvard and at the London School of Economics, followed by a business career including management roles in several Nigerian banks.

As an ex-banker who wants to smash through the old two-party system and reinvigorate his country with a technocratic style of politics, Obi has prompted comparisons to French President Emmanuel Macron – who described himself as “neither left nor right”, created his own political party and swept aside the traditional vehicles of social democracy and conservatism when he took the Élysée Palace and then won a crushing parliamentary majority in 2017.

Obi became leader of Nigeria’s Labour Party last year. Unlike the established British party bearing the same name, it is a rather marginal party – without much political machinery nationally, nor governors with power bases in Nigeria’s provinces.

But “likening Obi to Macron is a mistake”, said Ladipo Adamolekun, a Nigerian public administration expert and Francophile. “Macron created his En Marche! party when France’s traditional parties were already in decline – it’s not like that for Obi.”

And unlike Macron – whose sole political experience when he ran for the Élysée was a short stint as François Hollande’s economy minister – Obi is very far from a political neophyte.

Obi was governor of Anambra, a southern Nigerian state, from 2006 to 2014, before standing as the PDP’s vice-presidential candidate at the last presidential elections in 2019. He has changed his political allegiance four times since 2022, leading to accusations of opportunism.

Obi’s critics also question his probity, since he was mentioned in the Pandora Papers in 2021. However, his supporters say he has proven his integrity with effective governance of Anambra during his eight-year tenure there, which ended with huge savings in the state’s coffers – a compelling argument in an economy burdened by heavy public debt.

Igbo vote ‘won’t be enough’

But for all the hype surrounding Obi, many analysts doubt he can pull off a victory – even despite strong polling figures.

“In reality, a lot of the young people who’ve created all that social media buzz live abroad and can’t vote in Nigeria,” Babalola said. “As for polls, the numbers aren’t as reliable in Africa as they are in Europe,” he added.

Then there is the classic phenomenon of young voters’ poor turnout – which may well be amplified in Nigeria, which tends to have low turnout overall, with just 33 percent going to the polls in the 2019 presidential elections.

Finally, analysts doubt Obi can transcend the issues of ethnicity, religion and regional identity, all of which tend to be crucial factors in Nigerian voters’ choices. “The Igbo vote won’t be enough for Obi to win,” Babalola emphasised, while highlighting the importance of winning votes in the predominantly Muslim north.

Whoever wins at the ballot box, they will face colossal challenges. Nigeria’s economy is Africa’s largest but is troubled by inflation running at more than 20 percent, fuel shortages, a lack of cash during the ill-timed introduction of new bank notes, and an energy crisis causing frequent blackouts.

Public finances are in a bad shape, with debt servicing consuming 41 percent of public spending in 2022. The country’s sovereign ratings downgrade by Moody’s at the end of January is unlikely to help matters.

“As things stand, I doubt the new president will be able to put in place good governance,” said Adamolekun – who favours a “more decentralised federal system” to replace the current political structures.

“The new president will have to accept that the current political system isn’t conducive to the effective governance,” Adamolekun said. “The 1999 constitution was too centralising, especially when it came to the police, and that is a big factor in Nigeria’s security problems.”

Indeed, President Muhammadu Buhari’s last term was plagued by a marked deterioration in Nigeria’s security situation, fuelled by inter-ethnic conflicts, criminal gang activity and jihadism. According to the UN, jihadist violence has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced some 2.2 million in northeastern Nigeria since 2009. 

So regardless of whether Obi pulls off an almighty political upset, the new Nigerian president will find plenty of challenges waiting in their inbox.

Source: France 24