Nigeria started the vote counting after conducting a tightly contested election on Saturday, as three frontrunners competed for the country’s presidency in a ballot hit by long delays.
Around 90 million citizens were eligible to cast vote for the successor of President Muhammadu Buhari, as many Nigerians expected that the new leader will tackle issues of increasing poverty, the sluggish economy and a widening security crisis.
After the military rule’s end in 1999, for the first time a third serious candidate is contesting elections with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In this election race, the APC candidate, who was also former Lagos governor, Bola Tinubu is facing PDP’s leader and former vice president Atiku Abubakar and third party candidate, Labour’s leader Peter Obi, who was at one-time Anambra State governor.
The crowds gathered in Lagos and other cities to watch the counting of votes in polling centres, where the officials tallied ballots with their hands before sending them on electronically.
“One! Two! Three!” the crowd counted together loudly as the ballot papers were held up to the crowds by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) presiding officer at one polling station in southern Port Harcourt.
“I want to make sure it’s transparent and that the election is free and fair,” stated Juliette Ogbonda, a hotel receptionist, who was watching the counting.
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“Polling units in a large number of areas have closed and we started the counting of ballot papers,” said INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu.
The voting process was to end at 1330 GMT, however, angry voters were waiting in queue by nightfall to cast ballots after the voting process was started late by INEC or the system encountered problems with identification technology which disrupted the voting process in parts of Lagos, southern Port Harcourt and the northwest state of Kano.
(With inputs from agencies)
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