Nigeria’s Labor Party presidential candidate Peter Obi now says he will challenge the results declaring the ruling party candidate the winner.
According to media reports, Saturday’s election was marred by technical and staff problems that saw voting delayed by a day or more at some polling stations.
The Labour Party met with journalists and supporters Wednesday afternoon, hours after the electoral commission declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the candidate for the ruling All Progressives Congress party, as the winner of Saturday’s election.
Yusuf Datti-Ahmed, Labour’s vice presidential candidate, also called on party members and supporters to be calm.
“Illegality has been performed and as far as we’re concerned,” he said. “Here is an incoming government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that is illegal and unconstitutional. We’re submitting our case to the court of law. It is for them to show again that level of confidence.”
Another major contender in the election, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, is also challenging the results.
The PDP and Labour held a joint briefing Tuesday calling the result a sham hours before Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared Tinubu winner.
WHO IS BOLA TINUBU
Tnubu is a Muslim born in Nigeria’s Yoruba-speaking southwest.
He trained as an accountant in the United States and worked for several US companies, including as a treasurer at oil giant ExxonMobil.
He was a political activist before becoming a senator and later governor of Lagos State, which he governed from 1999 to 2007.
Tinubu’s supporters point to Lagos’s successes and insist he can replicate them on a national scale. The city-state is by and large the most viable economy in Nigeria.
Upon returning to Nigeria, Tinubu worked in the oil sector before venturing into politics. He was elected into the Nigerian senate in 1992 and served until the next year when the military seized power.
He fled the country in 1994 after the pro-democracy group he co-founded failed to sway the military to relinquish power.
Known as ‘Jagaban’ – ‘warrior of warriors’ – by his followers, Tinubu has shackles emblazoned on his trademark woven caps, to symbolize a time he lost his freedom when he was forced into exile by the dictator Sani Abacha.
He returned to Nigeria after four years and was successful in his bid for the top job in Lagos following Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999. Tinubu was dogged by allegations of corruption throughout the campaign trail which he strongly denies.
SOURCE: CNN