Nigerians Await Winner Of Presidential Vote After Polling Problems

Nigeria on Sunday awaited results from its presidential election as civil society groups warned that disorganization and violence may have undermined the polls.

Results from 120,000 polling stations in 36 states where voting was held Saturday were expected to trickle into the capital Abuja after being collated at the state and local levels. The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, will officially announce the outcome in the coming days.

Whoever becomes the next leader of Africa’s most populous country and leading oil producer will face a daunting to-do list, from widespread insecurity and endemic corruption to an economy recovering from the recession. While INEC said it was “generally satisfied” with the vote, polling stretched into Saturday evening beyond its designated 2 pm (1300 GMT) conclusion in areas where equipment failed to function or arrive on time.

Local media reported on Sunday that polls were still open in parts of Nigeria, while INEC has yet to say what it will do about the 8,500 polling places where casting ballots weren’t possible.

Civil society groups monitoring the vote reported 16 deaths from election-linked violence in eight states on Saturday. Nigeria’s last election in 2015 was seen as free and fair but Idayat Hassan of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) warned that this year’s bloodshed and malfunctions amounted to setbacks.

“This election was a serious deterioration from 2015,” she told AFP. “What we now expect from a credible, free and fair election was not there.”