Nigerian president-elect says vote integrity upheld

The integrity of the national election he won was defended by Nigeria's new president-elect Bola Tinubu, and he called for citizens to unite around him after a bitter dispute over the results that opposition parties have said are flawed.

The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC said Tinubu garnered 8.79 million votes in the weekend election, ahead of main opposition challenger Atiku Abubakar's 6.98 million votes.

Peter Obi, an outsider popular with younger and more educated urban voters, garnered 6.1 million votes.

A candidate can get more votes in a Nigerian election by getting more votes than their rivals, provided they get 25% of the vote in at least two-thirds of the 36 states and the federal capital Abuja, which Tinubu did.

I am very happy I have been elected president of the federal republic of Nigeria, Tinubu said to cheers in Abuja. I accept it. Nigeria's election was meant to be its fairest and most open contest to date. The electoral process encountered problems, due to new technology that did not function well and seemed to overwhelm Nigeria's notoriously inadequate communications network.

INEC had promised to upload results from each polling unit to its website in real time, but most units were unable to do so immediately, which is undermining trust in the process. Thousands of results are still to be uploaded.

The results were rejected by the main opposition parties of Atiku and Obi because of these failings.

I think the INEC has the right to run a credible election no matter what anyone says, according to Tinubu. The lapses reported were relatively few in number and were unaffected by the final outcome of the election. Tinubu is facing a long list of national problems including Islamist insurgencies in the northeast, armed attacks, killing and kidnappings, conflict between livestock herders and farmers, cash, fuel and power shortages, and deeply rooted corruption.