The Facts
On Wednesday, Bola Tinubu, the candidate for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party, was declared the winner of Nigeria's presidential election. Opposition parties have claimed the vote was rigged.
According to Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tinubu — the former governor of Lagos state — won close to 8.8M votes (37%) against nearly 7M (29%) for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Atiku Abubakar and about 6.1M (25%) for the Labour Party's Peter Obi.
The Spin
Narrative A
The electoral process in Nigeria has been marred by the incompetence of the INEC. Voters' and observers' trust in the process was eroded due to inadequate communication and lack of transparency about the cause of several failures on Saturday, which came amid widespread allegations of vote buying. There is enough evidence to affirm that the electoral body has been manipulating the entire process to benefit the ruling APC.
Narrative B
There are no legal or moral justifications for annulling this electoral process, only an anti-democratic desire among some — those who act as if they own Nigeria — to replicate the 1993 cancellation that tipped the country into chaos. It is strange that allegations of vote rigging emerged only when the APC had a strong lead, and not when Labor's Obi was declared the winner in Lagos in a subversion of the projected result.
