Bola Tinubu of the APC party has been declared the winner of the Presidential race by Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Tinubu, 70, won about 37 per cent of the vote, the electoral commission said, while Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) drew 29 per cent and Peter Obi of the Labour Party took 25 per cent.

A total of 18 presidential candidates contested the election held across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, on Saturday.

The APC candidate polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat fellow contenders – Atiku Abubakar of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who polled 6,984,520 votes, Labour Party’s Peter Obi had 6,101,533 votes to come third and candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) Rabiu Kwankwaso with 1,496,687 votes.

Of the 36 states and FCT, Bola Tinubu, Obi, and Atiku won 12 states each while Kwankwaso won only Kano State.

Tinubu’s ruling All Progressives Congress party urged the opposition to accept defeat Tuesday and not cause trouble after they had demanded a revote saying that delays in uploading election results had made room for irregularities.