ABUJA: Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday said his re-election was “free and fair”, after his beaten rival denounced the results as a “sham” and promised a legal challenge that could dominate politics for weeks.

The 76-year-old one-time military ruler’s victory was confirmed late on Tuesday, after rescheduled polling blamed on logistical difficulties.

Buhari’s winning margin over his nearest challenger, Atiku Abubakar, was 3.9 million votes — more than enough to ensure he remained head of Africa’s most populous nation and leading oil producer for the next four years.

Leading civil society election monitors YIAGA Africa, which has US and British backing, said “the announced election results reflect the votes cast”, even if there were problems.

But Abubakar’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) cried foul, claiming Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) colluded with the electoral commission to manipulate the outcome.

The former vice-president broke his silence nearly 10 hours after results were announced to explain he would have congratulated Buhari, had the vote been “free and fair”.

Instead, he said: “I hereby reject the result of the February 23, 2019 sham election and will be challenging it in court.”

Buhari called Saturday’s vote “another milestone in Nigeria’s democratic development”, 20 years after the country returned to civilian rule.

Thanking his opponents for a “hard-fought campaign”, he said: “From the comment of several observers, both local and foreign, it is obvious that the elections were both free and fair.”

The vote was marred by violence, including 53 deaths, according to election observers.

At 35 per cent across the country, low voter turnout was blamed on a combination of apathy because of the one-week delay, organisational problems and unrest.

Abubakar’s promise of legal action now raises the prospect of a lengthy court battle, which will dominate the run-up to Buhari’s official inauguration on May 29.

The PDP’s main claim is that data from handheld devices used to authenticate voter identities at nearly 120,000 polling units had been altered in favour of the ruling party.

It called for the data from the machines to be made available to all parties for checking and the election to be re-run in at least two states.

Tens of thousands of “valid, legal” votes had been cancelled elsewhere, it added.

Buhari sparked controversy weeks before the election by suspending the head of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen, after he was charged with corruption.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2019