Breaking News: Opposition wins Nigeria election
Muhammadu Buhari has won the Nigerian presidential elections!
Nigeria’s opposition candidate appears to be close to victory in an election followed closely in Africa and around the world.
With 32 of Nigeria’s 36 states, plus the capital, declaring results, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari was leading the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, by 2.9m votes, according to official results.
A spokesman for Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) claimed victory for the 72-year-old.
Buhari has campaigned as a born-again democrat intent on cleaning up the corrupt politics of the continent’s biggest economy and most populous nation.
Tensions have mounted as voting and the collation of results each had to be extended by a day. If Buhari’s victory is confirmed, Jonathan faces the prospect of being Nigeria’s first incumbent president to lose an election.
The former military ruler won the key prize of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, but at one point his lead was cut to 500,000 votes after landslide victories for Jonathan in his southern Delta homeland.
The second day of vote-counting got off to a dramatic start when a member of Jonathan’s party accused the electoral chief of bias.
Godsday Orubebe, a former minister and a member of the ruling People’s Democratic party (PDP) seized the microphone at the count on Tuesday morning and launched into an attack on the electoral chief.
“Mr chairman, we have lost confidence in you and what you’re doing. You’re not impartial, you’re compromised,” he said as Attahiru Jega, the electoral chief, apologised for the delay in announcing results.
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