Nigeria's presidential election tribunal on Wednesday (September 6) rejected an opposition challenge to Bola Tinubu's victory in February's disputed vote, following a pattern seen in previous election years in Africa's most populous country.
No legal challenge to the outcome of a presidential election has succeeded in Nigeria, which returned to democracy in 1999 after three decades of almost uninterrupted military rule and has a history of electoral fraud.
Atiku Abubakar of the People's Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who came second and third respectively, had asked the court to invalidate the election, alleging irregularities.
Judge Haruna Tsammani, reading out a lengthy ruling on behalf of the tribunal's panel of five justices, rejected Obi's petition point-by-point. He was reading Atiku's petition, which was also expected to be dismissed.
While favourable to Tinubu, the tribunal's ruling was unlikely to generate any particular euphoria or momentum for the president after an election marked by a record low turnout of 29%.
In a nation of more than 200 million people of whom 87 million were registered to vote, Tinubu garnered just 8.79 million votes, the fewest of any president since the return to democracy, limiting the goodwill towards him.
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