Nigerians waiting for fateful election result
LAGOS: Nigeria has started counting votes after one of the tightest elections ever held in Africa’s most populous democracy, with three frontrunners competing for the presidency in a ballot marred by long delays.
Nearly 90 million people were eligible to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor, with many Nigerians hoping their new leader would tackle a widening security crisis, the sluggish economy and growing poverty.
For the first time since the end of military rule in 1999, a third serious candidate has emerged to challenge the dominance of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The three-way race sees former Lagos governor and APC candidate Bola Tinubu facing PDP’s Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, and surprise third party candidate, Labour’s Peter Obi, a onetime Anambra State governor.
In Lagos and other cities, eager crowds gathered to watch counting in polling centres, where ballots were tallied by hand before they were sent on electronically.
People counted out loud together as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) presiding officer held up the ballot papers to crowds at one polling station in southern Port Harcourt.
“I want to make sure it’s transparent and that the election is free and fair,” said Juliette Ogbonda, a 30-year-old hotel receptionist, watching the counting.
Nigeria’s past elections have often been tainted by fraud and vote-rigging claims. PDP’s candidate Abubakar claimed fraud when he was beaten by Buhari in the 2019 vote before the Supreme Court dismissed his lawsuit.
Hours after voting was meant to end, angry voters were still waiting to cast ballots after INEC was late to fix problems with identification technology. INEC said people still in lines after could cast their ballots. “It is not normal. I will wait all night, I came to vote and I will,” said student Blessing Mbanefo.
Saturday’s vote went ahead mostly peacefully, although several Lagos polling booths were ransacked.
Nigeria’s poll will be closely watched in West Africa where coups in Mali and Burkina Faso and growing Islamist militancy have taken the region’s democracy backwards.
Whoever wins Nigeria’s presidency must manage Africa’s largest economy beset by a host of complex problems, from a grinding jihadist war and bandit militias and separatists to high inflation and widening poverty.