Nigeria's President Buhari takes unassailable lead in election: Reuters tally

ABUJA (Reuters) - President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday took an unassailable lead in the race to lead Africa’s largest economy and top oil producer, a tally by Reuters based on official and provisional results showed.

The party of Buhari’s main rival, businessman and former vice president Atiku Abubakar, demanded an immediate halt to the release of results by the Independent National Electoral Commission until turnout figures are provided to the competing parties.

Atiku’s party has rejected the tallies announced so far as “incorrect and unacceptable”. Buhari’s party has said the opposition was trying to discredit the returns from Saturday’s election.

The accusations have ratcheted up tensions in a vote marred by delays, logistical glitches and outbreaks of violence.

Observers from the Economic Community of West African States, the African Union and the United Nations appealed to all parties to await the official results, expected later this week, before filing complaints.

A tally by Reuters based on results from the electoral commission and provisional results announced in state capitals, but not yet confirmed by the commission, indicated that Buhari had a commanding lead of 57 percent compared to 40 percent for Atiku.

The candidate with the most votes nationwide is declared winner as long as they have at least one-quarter of the vote in two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the capital, Abuja. Otherwise there is a second-round run-off.

Buhari has already secured enough votes to meet both requirements, the Reuters tally showed.

(graphic: here)

Garba Shehu, Buhari’s spokesman, said the president’s office would have no comment until the electoral commission announces the winner.

If confirmed, Buhari faces a daunting to-do list, including reviving an economy still struggling to recover from a 2016 recession and quelling a decade-old Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands of people in the country’s northeast, many of them civilians.

Buhari, 76, is a former military ruler who took office in 2015 and sought a second term with pledges to fight corruption and overhaul Nigeria’s creaking road and rail network.

Atiku, 72, had said he would aim to double the size of the economy to $900 billion by 2025, privatise the state oil company and expand the role of the private sector if voted into office.

DELAYED VOTE

Voting took place on Saturday after a week-long delay which the election commission said was due to its inability to get ballots and results sheets to all parts of the country.

The event - Africa’s largest democratic exercise - has also been marred by violence in which at least 47 people have been killed since Saturday, according to the Situation Room, a monitoring organisation linking various civil society groups.

Some of the deaths took place after gangs allied to the leading parties clashed with each other as well as the police over the theft of ballot boxes and allegations of vote fraud.

Police have not yet provided official casualty figures.

More than 260 people have been killed since the start of the election campaign in October. The toll so far is lower than in earlier elections, but the worst unrest previously broke out only after results were announced.

On the streets of Abuja, people had mixed reactions to the way the election unfolded in a country where six decades of independence have been marked by long periods of military rule, coups and secessionist wars.

Mary Erondu, a civil servant, said people had been going yard to yard in her neighbourhood, collecting voters’ names and phones numbers.

“They will give them money, and I am not lying”, she said, without saying which party was doing this.

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