Nigeria’s disputed presidential election has been declared won by ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu. According to official results, the 70-year-old veteran politician received 36% of the vote.
His main rival, Atiku Abubakar, received 29% of the vote, while Labour’s Peter Obi received 25%. Their parties had previously called the election a sham and demanded a rerun.
Mr Tinubu is one of Nigeria’s wealthiest politicians, and his campaign is based on his record of rebuilding the country’s largest city, Lagos, while he was governor.
Nonetheless, he was defeated in the city by Mr Obi, a relative newcomer who rallied the support of many young people, particularly in urban areas, upending the country’s two-party system.
Mr Tinubu won the majority of the other states in his home region of the southwest, where he is a well-known “political godfather”.
“It’s my turn,” he campaigned for the presidency.
President Muhammadu Buhari is leaving office after two terms marked by economic stagnation and growing insecurity across the country, ranging from an Islamist insurgency in the north-east to a country-wide crisis of kidnapping for ransom and separatist attacks in the south-east.
Mr Tinubu is now in charge of resolving these and other issues in Africa’s most populous country and largest oil exporter.
Mr Tinubu will believe that he was destined to become president after fighting military rule in Nigeria, fleeing into exile, and is one of the founding members of the country’s democracy in 1999. He was always considered the favourite to succeed Mr Buhari, whom he assisted in becoming president, despite the obstacles he faced.
He was not expected to win the Republican Party primary, but he did. Many predicted that his choice of another Muslim as his running mate would be an impediment, but it was not.
Previously, all major parties split their presidential ticket with a southern Christian and a northern Muslim to garner broad support across this vast nation of 210 million people.
He must now demonstrate his ability to hit the ground running and that he is still the same formidable force that built modern Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub.
Mr Tinubu will be in charge of a collapsing economy, widespread insecurity, and, as evidenced by the results map, a country fragmenting into regional and religious blocs.
