Watch: Nigerian presidential candidate Peter Obi on his plans to transform Nigeria’s economy
Nigerians on Thursday elected Peter Obi as the nation’s next president in a vote that divided opposition to the man who campaigned on a promise of a new era on the continent.
The electoral college said 51 per cent of registered voters took to the polls in a poll that saw Nigeria embark on its first presidential election in 2015.
The result triggered a backlash from the opposition camp, leading to massive protests across the nation in what has been seen as an election where the president did not run the show.
At the rally, Obi challenged the results of the vote and demanded of the electoral college that the names of those declared winners be released as he claimed that people were denied a chance to change their minds.
“By the results of today’s election, we cannot claim victory. We have lost. We cannot accept those results,” Obi said.
His challenge comes after the opposition-led Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) said it would seek a recount in areas where their candidates lost and called on the election commission to hold another round of presidential elections, calling the verdict of the electoral college’s election committee an “unprecedented rejection of the will of the people.”
The electoral college, with the support of the three-man Supreme Council of the Nigeria Football Federation, the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Independent National Electoral Commission-Administration, declared former First Lady and Vice President Goodluck Jonathan the winner of the election.
Election observers from the Commonwealth of Nations, the Electoral Commission and the African National Congress (ANC) said the vote was “an unfair and undemocratic exercise and an abrogation of democratic elections.”
The observers said the Independent National Electoral Commission-Administration did not have any “clear guidelines or procedures governing the conduct and conduct of the electoral processes and the election was invalid and void.”
“The election was characterized by irregularities, vote-buying, and abuse of power and inefficiency in the conduct of the elections.
“The conduct of the elections has been characterized by a number of serious shortcomings, in particular, in the conduct of the election in areas where people were concentrated, the conduct