Abuja, Nigeria
Buhari win contested: Defeated Nigerian presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar is challenging Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election last month in a chaotic vote marred by delay. The incumbent took 56 percent of the vote to Abubakar’s 41 percent. The vote had been scheduled for a week earlier, but election officials canceled it just hours before polls opened, saying ballot boxes and papers were not in place. Urban voters who had traveled to their home villages to vote were told to return the following week, and many did not do so. Turnout was less than 33 percent, the lowest in Nigeria’s 20-year history as a democracy. This week, after Abubakar brought his legal challenge, authorities arrested his finance chairman—who is also his son-in-law—and his lawyer on money-laundering charges. Abubakar’s spokesman called the arrests an intimidation attempt.