Election officers in Nigeria began counting ballots as polling stations closed throughout the nation on Saturday.
Nigerians filed out to solid votes early Saturday for a brand new president, Federal House of Representatives and Senate.
Voting was scheduled to start out by 8.30 a.m. and accreditation ended by 2.30 p.m., in response to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
INEC Chairman Mahmoud Yakubu mentioned voting in components of southern Edo State was suspended as a result of some irregularities.
“There were some issues regarding violence in Esp State. We have resolved to suspend the House of Representatives election in the area. Elections there will now be held simultaneously with the governorship poll on March 11,” Yakubu introduced at a press convention within the nation’s capital Abuja.
An election official, Suleiman Abdulsalam mentioned voting dragged to night time as a result of many citizens have been nonetheless within the queue.
“We have instruction to accredit voters who are on the queue between 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. and allow them to vote,” he informed Anadolu Agency.
Three rivals
The success of Nigeria’s vote shall be intently watched in West Africa the place coups in Mali and Burkina Faso and rising militancy have taken the area’s democracy again a step.
Whoever wins Nigeria’s presidency should handle Africa’s largest economic system beset by a number of advanced issues, from a grinding terrorist battle and bandit militias and separatists to excessive inflation and widening poverty.
But Saturday’s vote went forward principally peacefully.
Several Lagos polling cubicles have been ransacked, in response to INEC, and voting at 141 polling models in southern Bayelsa State would happen on Sunday after the poll was disrupted.
Voters may also solid their poll for Nigeria’s two homes of parliament, the National Assembly and Senate.
Buhari, a former military commander, steps down after two phrases in workplace, with critics saying he failed in his guarantees to make Nigeria safer.
APC’s candidate Tinubu, 70, a long-time political kingmaker, says “It’s my turn” for the presidency. He can rely on APC’s construction and his political community.
He faces a well-known rival — PDP candidate Abubakar, 76, who’s on his sixth bid for the highest job and touts his business expertise.
But each are previous guard figures who’ve fought off previous corruption accusations.
The emergence of a shock third candidate interesting to younger voters, Labour Party’s Obi, 61, has thrown the race open along with his marketing campaign because the candidate of change.
Cash shortages
Fuel and money shortages attributable to a banknote trade within the run-up to the election additionally left many Nigerians struggling greater than common in a rustic already hit by greater than 20% inflation.
To win the presidency, a candidate should get essentially the most votes, but in addition win 25 % in two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states.
If no candidate wins, a runoff will happen inside 21 days between two frontrunners — an unprecedented consequence that some analysts say is a chance this time round.
The guidelines replicate a rustic virtually equally cut up between the principally Muslim north and predominantly Christian south, and with three foremost ethnic teams throughout the areas: Yoruba within the southwest, Hausa/Fulani within the north and Igbo within the southeast.
Voting additionally typically falls alongside ethnic and spiritual strains: Tinubu is a southern Yoruba Muslim, Abubakar is an ethnic Fulani Muslim from the northeast and Obi is a Christian Igbo from the southeast.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
