Bola Tinubu Wins Nigeria's Presidential Election

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Facts

  • On Wednesday, Bola Tinubu, the candidate for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party, was declared the winner of Nigeria's presidential election. Opposition parties have claimed the vote was rigged.1
  • According to Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tinubu — the former governor of Lagos state — won close to 8.8M votes (37%) against nearly 7M (29%) for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Atiku Abubakar and about 6.1M (25%) for the Labour Party's Peter Obi.2
  • Labor Party and PDP representatives, however, have claimed that the vote was 'irretrievably compromised' and demanded its cancellation, while international observers criticized the process over multiple technical and logistical problems.3
  • In addition to pushing for fresh elections, APC opponents expressed a loss of confidence in Mahmood Yakubu, the INEC chairman. The electoral body, meanwhile, rejected calls for a new election, stressing that the electoral process had been 'free, fair and credible.'4
  • This comes after the PDP and Labor Party walked out of the election center in Abuja on Monday, arguing that the newly implemented electronic voting system — which is being used for the fist time in Nigeria's national elections — lacks transparency.5
  • Tinubu is set to become Nigeria's fifth elected president since the country restored democracy in 1999. According to the INEC, more than 93M people registered for the polls — 24M valid votes were recorded, meaning a 26% voter turnout.4

Sources: 1Guardian (a), 2Associated Press, 3Guardian (b), 4CNN and 5Itn.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by Thisdaylive. The electoral process in Nigeria has been marred by the incompetence of the INEC. Voters' and observers' trust in the process was eroded due to inadequate communication and lack of transparency about the cause of several failures on Saturday, which came amid widespread allegations of vote buying. There is enough evidence to affirm that the electoral body has been manipulating the entire process to benefit the ruling APC.
  • Narrative B, as provided by Premium times nigeria. There are no legal or moral justifications for annulling this electoral process, only an anti-democratic desire among some — those who act as if they own Nigeria — to replicate the 1993 cancellation that tipped the country into chaos. It is strange that allegations of vote rigging emerged only when the APC had a strong lead, and not when Labor's Obi was declared the winner in Lagos in a subversion of the projected result.

Predictions