Nigeria’s Buhari wins second presidential term

Nigeria’s incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari has won his re-election bid with 15,191,847 votes.

He defeated his main opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar, a businessman and former vice president. Buhari secured 56 percent of votes, compared with 41 percent for Atiku, a candidate for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

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

The PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar polled 11,262,978 to lose the election the presidential poll conducted last Saturday, February 23.

The electoral commission chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, on Wednesday morning, formally declared Muhammadu Buhari, candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner and returned as President.

With the figures, the incumbent President has more than 25% of the electoral votes in over 24 states as satisfied electoral laws.

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

Addressing supporters at the campaign headquarters of his All Progressive Congress (APC) party in the capital Abuja, he promised to tackle these issues.

“The new administration will intensify its efforts in security, restructuring the economy and fighting corruption,” Buhari said after being declared the winner. He urged his supporters “not to gloat or humiliate” the opposition.

A message on Buhari’s Twitter feed showed a picture of him waving to supporters and a simple message “4+4” as he embarks on his second four-year term.

Buhari’s supporters gathered at the party’s headquarters to celebrate, many of them holding flags and dancing.