27 February 2019•Update: 28 February 2019
By Rafiu Ajakaye
LAGOS Nigeria
Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday thanked his countrymen for handing him another four years in the saddle, hours after the electoral commission declared him the president-elect.
Buhari also thanked the security agencies, observer groups, and the international community for their contributions to the process.
“I am very sad at the grievous loss of lives during these elections. Security agencies will step up their efforts to protect voters in the forthcoming state elections,” the president said in a statement he personally signed.
“Although Saturday’s elections were relatively peaceful, troublemakers in a handful of states attempted to disrupt an otherwise orderly process. Security agencies will bring to justice all those arrested in the process.”
Implicitly rebuffing claims his administration is divisive, the president said he would promote unity and inclusiveness so that “no section or group will feel left behind or left out.”
“The new administration will intensify its efforts in security, restructuring the economy, and fighting corruption. We have laid down the foundation and we are committed to seeing matters to the end,” he added.
Buhari won the country's hotly contested presidential ballot on Saturday, polling 15.19 million votes to edge past his closest rival, who got 11.26 million, according to the electoral body.
Buhari, 76, won in 19 of the country's 36 states and gathered the constitutional 25 percent of the votes in at least 34 of the states and the federal capital Abuja.
“Muhammadu Buhari, having scored the highest number of votes and satisfied the requirements of the law, is here declared the winner and returned as elected,” Mahmud Yakubu, head of the electoral commission, said early Wednesday.
'Sham election' claimed
Nigeria has a total of 84 million registered voters, but only 72.8 million were eligible to vote in the election, which observers said were largely transparent but marred by pockets of violence
Buhari ran against the main opposition People's Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and multibillionaire businessman.
The opposition has rejected the outcome of the polls, alleging widespread irregularities.
In a statement, Atiku said the ballot lacked credibility and its outcome stands rejected.
“In my democratic struggles for the past three decades, I have never seen our democracy so debased as it was on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019,” he said.
“Consequently, I hereby reject the result of the sham election and will be challenging it in court.”
