Nigeria Elections: Buhari Wins Second Term As President

By Staff, Agencies

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari won a second term at the helm of Africa's largest economy and top oil producer, a tally by Reuters based on electoral commission results showed.

Buhari won by 56 percent compared with 41 percent for the other candidate, businessman and former vice president Atiku Abubakar of the People's Democratic Party.

It was reported that he won by 3.9 million votes, having garnered 15.2 million to Atiku's 11.3 million. The turnout, based on valid votes, was 33.2 percent. In the 2015 presidential election, turnout was 44 percent.

Garba Shehu, Buhari's spokesman, said the president's office would have no comment until the electoral commission announces the winner.

Meanwhile, Buhari faces a daunting to-do list, including reviving an economy still struggling to recover from a 2016 recession and quelling a decade-old insurgency that killed thousands of people in the northeast, many of them civilians.

Under Buhari, the Nigerian soldiers attacked Shia Muslims attending a ceremony at a religious center in the city of Zaria on December 12, 2015, alleging they were blocking the convoy of the army's chief of staff and attempting to assassinate him.

In the following day, Nigerian forces raided the house of senior Shia cleric Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zakzaky, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria [IMN], and arrested him after killing those attempting to protect him.

Despite a Nigerian law which requires that charges be brought in court within 24 hours of an arrest, Buhari back then refused to order Sheikh Zakzaky's release.