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Tuesday, February 28, 2023 –Nigeria’s ruling Party candidate Bola Tinubu took an early lead in the race for the presidency, according to initial tallies released on Monday February 27.
This was happening even as the election was marked by irritating long delays as opposition leaders and supporters walked out accusing the government of an astronomical fraud.
In the hotly-contested election, former Lagos governor Tinubu faced main opposition party PDP’s Atiku Abubakar in Saturday’s vote, but Labour Party’s Peter Obi tested the two others as a third contender for the first time in Nigeria’s modern democracy.
East African publication reported that Obi won the key state of Lagos, a bastion of Tinubu’s support which also has the largest number of registered voters.
With President Muhammadu Buhari stepping down, many Nigerians voted with the hope that a new leader will do a better job tackling challenges like insecurity, economic malaise and widening poverty in Africa’s most populous country.
Voting on Saturday was mostly peaceful, but thugs ransacked some polling stations, many others opened very late, and delays slowed the uploading of results to an official website meant to promote transparency.
Both local and international observers who have been pitching camp there are yet to give their verdict on how the exercise was, even as the main opposition describes it as shambolic.