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Opposition leader Atiku Abubakar who came second in the February 25 presidential poll took to the streets recently along with his supporters agitated over the election results, which they allege are rigged. The electoral body last week declared Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner
Opposition leader Atiku Abubakar who came second in the February 25 presidential poll took to the streets recently along with his supporters agitated over the election results, which they allege are rigged. The electoral body last week declared Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner. He will take over from President Muhammadu Buhari in May.
Almost 25 million people cast ballots in a vote that was largely peaceful. However, there were long delays and technical glitches. The opposition parties claim that there was massive vote rigging. Abubakar’s supporters and members of his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) dressed in black walked to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s headquarters in Abuja and submitted a petition. It lists electoral fraud committed. They allege that INEC had direct involvement in the rigging.
The commission has acknowledged technical difficulties on the day of the vote. However, it rejected claims of fraud. The Labour Party’s Peter Obi, who came in third in the election, had also rejected the results. He said he was going to court to prove to Nigerians he won the presidential race.
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In a bid to improve transparency, INEC this year introduced biometric voter identification for the first time at the national level as well as IReV, a central online database for uploading results. But opposition parties said failures in the system when uploading tallies led to ballot manipulation and disparities between the manual and online results. INEC is set to address some of the concerns raised by parties and voters before key governorship and local assembly elections are held on Saturday.
