The candidate of Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, won the presidential election on Wednesday, succeeding Muhammadu Buhari, who has served two successive terms.

“Tinubu Bola Ahmed of the APC, having met the requirements of the law, is declared the winner and elected,” the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, told reporters in Abuja.

Nigeria's Tinubu declared president-elect by electoral commission https://t.co/0XiW9cCdv3 pic.twitter.com/CliDVPCrPK

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The ruling party’s candidate was elected with 8.8 million votes against his two main rivals and was congratulated by the outgoing president Buhari.

“I congratulate His Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu on his victory. Elected by the people, he is the best person for the job. I will now work with him and his team to ensure an orderly transfer of power,” he said, saying his election was “the greatest democratic exercise in Africa,” pointing to the many military takeovers in recent years in the region.

Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), won 6.9 million votes, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), the outsider in this presidential election, a popular and youth-oriented candidate, won 6.1 million votes.

More than 87 million voters were called to the polls on Saturday, but the turnout figures are not yet known.

Tinubu Bola Ahmed, 70, succeeds the outgoing president Muhammadu Buhari, 80, who has served two successive terms and could not run again.

The election of this former governor of Lagos (south-west) and nicknamed “the godfather” because of his immense political influence, was not in doubt despite a tight presidential election.

To be declared the winner, he needed 25% of the vote in at least two-thirds of the 36 states of the Federation as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

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