Sao Paulo
Thirdplace finisher in Nigeria’s general election, Peter Obi, 61, broke his silence since losing the election and said this Thursday (2) that he would challenge the result in court. “We won and we will prove it.”
Obi, former governor of Anambra and Labor Party candidate, spoke to journalists at his hotel in the capital Abuja, four days after the elections that took place last Saturday (25).
In a statement this Wednesday (1st), the electoral institute declared government candidate Bola Tinubu, 70, the winner. Official results show Tinubu with 37% of the national vote followed by opposition Atiku Abubakar (29%) and Obi (25%).
Obi did not provide evidence of the reasons he has for the allegation that there was voter fraud. But according to earlier statements by his party, the justification appears to be the electoral body’s delay in announcing the official election results.
“Nigeria’s working people have been robbed again by our wouldbe leaders,” Obi said. “I urge everyone to remain peaceful, lawabiding and behave responsibly.”
In a country where violence is only escalating, analysts were already concerned that potential fraud allegations whether justified or not would spark even more conflict in Africa’s most populous country and the sixth most populous in the world.
Obi has 21 days from election day under Nigerian election law to contest the result in the country’s highest courts.
With a long history of abstention, political parties relied on the introduction of Bvas, a digital biometrics system, in hopes that participation rates would be higher, which did not happen. Only 29% of more than 87 million voters went to the polls.
There was also a problem with getting the results online, a task which, in theory, would be simplified by the new system. One of the hypotheses is that the difficulty of connecting to the Internet in some regions of the country delayed the process.
But never before in the democratic history of the country, which abandoned a dictatorship in 1999, has the election map been so colourful: votes added up, the result is that each of the three main candidates received the most votes in 12 of the 36 states.
Nigeria has a long history of political violence, although the mood has been calm following the announcement of the results of these elections. Tinubu, the winning candidate, said Wednesday that the election was legitimate and that the issues reported had not affected the overall result.
Twice elected governor of Lagos around the turn of the 2000s, he became known for increasing revenue for the state, which is home to the city of the same name and is the nation’s economic capital. He also managed to reduce violent crime rates, congestion, and clean up the streets.
Supporters hope he will now replicate his success nationally amid a context of widespread violence and high unemployment, capped by a disorderly initiative to update local banknotes, a process that led to a shortage of paper money.