Muhammadu Buhari re-elected as Nigeria’s president

Feb. 26 (UPI) — Incumbent Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has been elected for a second four-year term, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission.

More than three days after the election was held, Buhari was declared the winner of the election Wednesday morning, Nigeria’s The Guardian reported.

With all 36 states and The Federal Capital Territory counted, Buhari, 76, of the All Progressives Congress party, won 19 states with over 15 million votes, nearly 4 million votes more than his main challenger Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party, who took 17 states.

There were 91 registered political parties in the election.

In 2015, Buhari earned 15,424,921 votes to beat the then incumbent Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP party who had 12,853,162 votes, becoming the first challenger to unseat a president.

The president’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, tweeted pictures of Buhari relaxed on a couch watching news of the election results Tuesday night.

However, the People’s Democratic Party rejected the results, demanding that the announcement be delayed claiming vote manipulation.

“The PDP demands the immediate discontinuation of the announcement until data from the use of card readers are made available,” PDP deputy director-general and Abubakar’s campaign organization Kabiru Turaki said Tuesday.

Only 35 percent of registered voters made it to the 119,973 polling stations Feb. 23, an election day that was overshadowed by violence as at least 39 people were killed across the country that resulted in a delay to vote-counting, the New York Times reported.


Most of the violence occurred in the opposition-stronghold south where the election was tight.

Voter turnout in the most populous country in Africa was the lowest it had been in 20 years, the BBC reported.