Monitoring Desk
ABUJA: Nigeria’s electoral commission started announcing state-by-state results from countrywide polls on Sunday, amid complaints about some irregularities, though it is not expected to announce a winner in the elections to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari for a week.
Electoral Commission in Nigeria
The presidential election is expected to be the closest in the history of Nigeria, with candidates from two major parties that have alternated power since the end of military government in 1999 confronting an unusually strong challenge from a minor party nominee popular among the youth.
Votes in parliamentary and presidential polls are organized in each of Nigeria’s thirty-six states, local media reported.
The first election results, from Ekiki state, suggested a majority of votes for President cast in favor of Bola Tinubu.
Read Also: Nigeria Presidential Election: Counting Under Way but Final Results May Take Days
Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission Mahmood Yakubu adjourned the session after the first results and said the release of counts would restart at 11 am on Monday.
However, all three political parties complained of irregularities during the elections in the African country. Obi’s Labour party criticized the electoral commission for failing to upload elections’ results directly from each polling station to its website, as the commission had pledged to ensure transparency.
Outgoing President of Nigeria, a retired military general who was also once a military dictator in the 1980s, is going to step down following winning two last elections in the country.
