Opposition rejects Buhari’s re-election

Bloomberg

Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari won a second term as president of Africa’s biggest oil producer with promises to revive an anemic economy and tackle security threats including a devastating war against insurgents loyal to IS. His main opponent rejected the results.
The defeated rival, Atiku Abubakar, on Wednesday said he will go to court to contest Independent National Electoral Commission results showing a 56 percent to 41 percent victory for Buhari and called the vote a “sham.” The president’s re-election will also be tainted by criticism of the balloting by domestic and international observers and violence that claimed 39 lives.
Buhari faces a divided nation, with an increasingly youthful population angry over the lack of jobs and education opportunities, with ethnic and religious divisions often close to the boil. Nigeria now has 87 million extremely poor people, more than any other nation, according to the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. The United Nations expects its population to double to 410 million by 2050, overtaking everywhere bar India and China.
“What we should be focused on at this point is how to heal the country, how to merge the widening divide that this election has actually brought,” said Idayat Hassan, director at the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
Abubakar’s statement showed that controversy over the vote would continue.
“It is clear that there were manifest and premeditated malpractices in many states which negate the results announced,” Abubakar, 72, said in his statement.