The third-place candidate in Nigeria’s presidential election has vowed to prove in court that his supporters were “robbed” of victory.
Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who received 25% of the vote according to official results. He was speaking in public for the first time since the weekend election.
With 37% of the vote, Bola Tinubu of the ruling APC party was declared the victor.
Atiku Abubakar of the principal opposition party, the PDP, placed second with 29%.
Mr. Obi stated that Saturday’s election would be “one of the most contentious elections in Nigeria’s history.”
He told journalists on Thursday, “The decent and hardworking people of Nigeria have once again been robbed by our supposedly trustworthy leaders.”
He has 21 days from the date the results were revealed to appeal to Nigeria’s highest court.
The election guidelines provided by Inec indicate that the results from each of the more than 176,000 polling stations will be electronically transmitted to the commission’s collation system and uploaded to its website.
On Saturday, however, this was not feasible due to what Inec termed “technical glitches.” It stated that any differences between portal results and “physical results” would be investigated and resolved.
Inec also blamed outside factors, such as polling stations without internet access, which prevented it from uploading data.
The elections were marred by lengthy delays, which caused some voters to stand in line throughout the night to submit their ballots, and voting in some areas extended into Sunday.
There have also been instances of armed individuals attacking polling places and stealing ballot boxes.
However, it is unclear whether these issues were sufficient to affect the outcome. As Mr. Tinubu won by a margin of approximately 1.8 million votes.
Although Mr. Obi was a member of the PDP until last year and the party’s vice-presidential candidate in 2019. He was viewed by many as a newcomer and posed a formidable challenge to the two parties that have dominated Nigeria since the end of the military dictatorship in 1999.
