Ruling party candidate, 70-year-old Bola Tinubu, has been declared as winner of the 25 February Elections in Nigeria.
Tinubu is set to replace President Muhammad Buhari in May this year.
The veteran politician got 37% of the vote while his main rival Atiku Abubakar polled 29% and Labour Party’s Peter Obi got 25%.
The opposition parties had earlier dismissed the poll as a sham, and demanded a rerun, the BBC reported.
The president-elect served as Lagos Governor between 1999 and 2007 and is widely credited with reshaping Nigeria’s commercial hub Lagos.
However, according to the BBC , his critics say his age is catching up with him and point to videos of various gaffes at campaign rallies where it can be hard to understand what he’s saying.
Published reports indicate that Tinubu during the campaign appeared frail in public and skipped several campaign events, leaving some to doubt how effective he would be in his new role where he would be required to unify the country, revive a declining economy and resolve widespread insecurity and high inflation.
Tinubu was born in Lagos in 1952, to a Muslim family from the Yoruba ethnic group, the majority in southwest Nigeria.
In the 1970s, he emigrated to the United States, where he worked as a dishwasher, taxi driver and night guard to fund his studies. He graduated from Chicago State University in 1979 with a degree in business administration.
After working for U.S. consultancy firms, he returned to Nigeria in the 1980s and worked for the branch of the Mobil oil company as an auditor.
He first got involved in politics in the 1990s and was elected governor of Lagos when military rule ended in 1999. He served two terms.
