Bola Tinubu elected President of Nigeria, reports Election Commission | world

On Wednesday (1), the Nigerian Election Commission announced the election of candidate Paula Tinubu as Chair. The result comes after balanced elections.

Tinubu’s victory extends the Progressive Congress Party’s (APC) grip on power in Africa’s largest oil producer and most populous country. However, Tinubu inherits a series of problems from current President Muhammadu Buhari, who is also from the APC.

The former governor of the Lagos shopping mall received 8.79 million votes. His main opposition opponent, Atiku Abubakar, received 6.98 million votes. Peter Opie, an outsider popular with younger voters, received 6.1 million votes.

Nigerian electoral law stipulates that a candidate can only win by obtaining more votes than his rivals, provided he receives 25% of the vote in at least two-thirds of the 36 states and the federal capital, Abuja, a feat achieved by Tinubu.

For most of his political career, Nigerian President-elect Bola Tinubu wielded power behind the scenes, and is widely regarded as a “godfather” who uses an extensive network of patronage to support candidates for public office.

Tinubu’s support helped the leader and incumbent president win two terms, in 2015 and 2019. Since stepping down as governor of Lagos in 2007, Tinubu has hand-picked each subsequent winning candidate to run Africa’s largest city.

That strength will now be tested as Tinubu tries to tackle Nigeria’s crisis and improve Buhari’s midrange performance.

Nigeria is besieged by armed groups that have made parts of the country ungovernable, while its economy is barely keeping pace with population growth amid soaring inflation and a lack of liquidity after the unsuccessful introduction of new banknotes.

Many of these problems were exacerbated under Buhari, on whose ticket Tinubu ran. When asked at a press conference last weekend why voters elected him, Tinubu sought to distance himself from the party he helped create.

He said, “I’m not the party.” “My record should speak for me. Look at Lagos: before I arrived, we had dead bodies on the road, a chaotic traffic system, and robberies during the day and night.”

“Come on: clap your hands for me,” he added, in a typical display of boasting that often characterizes the leaders of Africa’s largest and most populous oil-producing country.

Although Tinubu missed many of his party’s big campaign events and appeared frail during some appearances, his speech often slow and stuttering, he repeatedly brushed off concerns about his health.

Tinubu’s supporters portray him as an effective administrator with a history of selecting competent technocrats.

Critics say he gives lucrative contracts and good jobs to his supporters and has in the past used his so-called district boys, who informally control the streets of Lagos and attend his rallies en masse, to intimidate opponents if he doesn’t get his way. Wants.

The 70-year-old does not react to such allegations and tends to ignore them. A spokesman for Tinubu’s campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

A biography on Tinubu’s campaign website says he was born in Lagos in 1952 into a Muslim family of the Yoruba ethnic group, mostly in southwestern Nigeria. Others say it is much larger.

In the 1970s, Tinubu emigrated to the United States, where he worked as a dishwasher, taxi driver, and night watchman to pay for his studies. He received a degree in Business Administration from Chicago State University in 1979.

After working for American consulting firms, Tinubu returned to Nigeria in the 1980s and worked for the oil company Mobil as an auditor.

He first became involved in politics in the 1990s and was elected governor of Lagos when military rule ended in 1999. Tinubu served two terms.

His supporters say he has upgraded roads, garbage collection and other services in the chaotic city, but many Lagos residents say the city remains highly dysfunctional.

Other citizens question whether the city has really achieved good value for money, due to the exorbitant cost of contracts – some with companies in which its close allies hold a controlling interest. A subway project that Tinubu started 20 years ago has yet to be completed.

And Tinubu’s support for Buhari, whose government has struggled to address major economic and security problems in Nigeria, has done little to boost confidence in him among many of the 93.4 million registered voters.