Ruling party takes strong lead in Nigeria elections

BBC reported that Bola Tinubu from Nigeria’s ruling party has taken a strong lead as results are declared from Saturday’s presidential election, amid opposition protests.

With results announced from about three-quarters of the states, he has a lead of about 1.5 million votes.

Tinubu, 70, a wealthy businessman and former governor of Lagos state, has 37% of votes counted so far. Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has 29%, while third-party candidate Peter Obi has 24%.

The parties of both Abubakar and Obi have called for the election to be cancelled and rerun, alleging that the inability of the electoral commission to upload results to its website showed that the results had been manipulated.

Many voters reported problems with uploading results through the new electronic voting system, which was intended to speed up the process. There were also widespread delays, with many polling stations opening several hours late, and some attacked by armed men. Voting was held overnight, and on Sunday in some areas.

The electoral commission says the opposition parties should take their complaints to court and is pressing ahead with the release of results.