Nigeria: disputed election heads towards a result

Provisional results from around two-thirds of Nigeria's states suggest ruling party candidate Bola Tanubu is leading the country's disputed presidential election. As of Tuesday morning, the APC's Tanubu had about 36 percent of valid votes counted. The main opposition PDP parties at Tiku Abu Bakar was on 30 percent. Outside challenger Peter Obi, from the smaller Labour Party, was on 20 percent. More results were expected to show the winner later on Tuesday. But this election has been marred by logistical and technological difficulties. That's resulted in a failure in many places to upload results directly from each polling unit to the Electoral Commission's website.

That was a promise it had made to guarantee transparency. The Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC, has said it takes full responsibility for the problems and regrets the distress caused. Observer missions have criticised the failings. The European Union's mission said trust in the process had been reduced and here's Ernest Karoma, chief mission observer for the economic community of West African states. The late arrival of polling officials, voting materials and in some cases the delivery of wrong materials at polling stations across the country. Opposition parties have also been scathing, with some walking out of the counting process on Monday citing concerns over fraud. Trigged is how the campaign manager for Etikou's PDP described the situation.

OB's campaign manager said they had lost confidence in the results being collated and announced, as he called on INEC to follow its own guidelines or cancel the entire election.

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