For the third day, Nigeria awaits the results of a closely contested presidential election held on Saturday for the leadership of Africa’s most populous country in the face of a slow count that is giving way to allegations of fraud with a consequent increase in tensions. More than 87 million registered voters were called to the polls to choose from 18 candidates the politician who will have the difficult task of reviving the country as the continent’s greatest economic power afflicted by social crises and widespread violence. After providing the results of Ekiti, a small southwestern state on Sunday, the National Electoral Commission (Inec) postponed the rest until yesterday morning, but as of 12:00 local time, the announcements had still not resumed. The electoral process was complicated by the electronic transfer of results, tested for the first time at a national level and this morning, only 30% of the results of around 176,000 polling stations had been uploaded to the Inec platform. Competing to replace Muhammadu Buhari, a former general who has reached the end of his second and non-renewable mandate, is first of all the Islamic Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos, supported by the machine of the government party “Apc” of which he is “the godfather”. On the basis of controversial polls, it does not seem so much the Muslim head of the main opposition party (Pdp), the former vice president (between 1999 and 2007) Atiku Abubakar, as undermining him, but rather the Christian entrepreneur Peter Obi: expression of the tiny formation Labor Party, would enjoy the support above all of young people, in a country where 60% of the population is under 25 years old.
Hard fight between the candidates in the running
The odd man out, former businessman and Labor Party exponent Peter Obi won the majority of votes in the state of Lagos, the economic ‘capital’ of Nigeria, a stronghold of one of his two opponents, the leader of the Congress of all progressives , Bola Tinubu, who had been governor of Lagos. Obi also won the overwhelming majority of Enugu state votes. In at least five states (Ekiti, Kwara, Ogun, Ondo and Oyo) Tinubu won but majority, as announced by the Electoral Commission. But in 16 states and Abuja the counting of votes has not yet allowed to declare a winner, therefore the winner of the presidential elections in Nigeria.
“People have the right to vote for whoever they want,” he said after accepting the defeat in Lagos, urging calm after violence was reported in some neighborhoods of the city which affected Igbo traders. Atiku Abubakar, the leader of the People’s Democratic Party won the majority in the states of Osun, Adamawa and Katsina, as well as in Akwa-Ibom. Meanwhile, delegates from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Labor left the National Assembly Center where official results are announced. The PDP exponent denounced that in several states the devices for confirming the validity of the electoral card did not work properly but the Electoral Commission refused to offer clarifications. To win a presidential election, a candidate must win a majority of the vote and a quarter of the vote in at least 25 of the country’s 36 states plus Abuja.
Source-tg24.sky.it