Election that produced Tinubu as president was flawed – Buhari admits

President Muhammadu Buhari has acknowledged that the recently concluded presidential election in Nigeria, which saw former governor of Lagos Bola Tinubu emerge as the winner, was flawed.

However, he has also stated that the flaws identified did not challenge the fairness and transparency of the election.

In a statement released by his media aide Garba Shehu, the Nigerian leader congratulated the president-elect, while also urging candidates who feel aggrieved to challenge the outcome in court.

President Buhari charged Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party to provide evidence of any fraud or irregularities they claim were committed against them.

The President also addressed the technical problems that occurred during the electronic transmission of the election results.

He acknowledged that there were areas that need improvement to further enhance transparency and credibility in the voting process. Nevertheless, he maintained that none of the issues recorded represented a challenge to the freeness and fairness of the election.

Bola Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes, winning in 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, who polled 6,984,520 votes, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party came third, polling 6,101,533 votes.

The declaration of Mr Tinubu as the president-elect has been met with protests from both the PDP and Labour Party, calling for the suspension of the result collation and outright cancellation of the presidential poll. The protesters cite INEC’s failure to upload election results on its server in real-time as the reason for their dissatisfaction.

The President has, however, urged the aggrieved parties to take their grievances to court, rather than resort to street protests. He stressed that any candidate who feels cheated should provide evidence of the fraud they claim was committed against them.