LAGOS (Reuters) -- Provisional results from Nigeria’s disputed presidential election over the weekend showed Bola Tinubu from the ruling party in the lead, a Reuters tally of votes in 25 of the country’s 36 states showed on Tuesday.
Electoral commission results from the states showed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress party (APC) was ahead with about 36% or 7 million of valid votes counted, with Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) trailing close behind with 30% or nearly 6 million valid votes.
Peter Obi of the smaller Labor Party got 20% or about 3.8 million votes. More results were expected to show the winner later on Tuesday.
The preliminary results were announced in the states by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officers and will still have to be presented at the commission’s national collation centre in the federal capital Abuja.
But opposition parties have rejected the results as the product of a flawed process, which suffered multiple technical difficulties owing to the introduction of new technology by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
INEC had promised to upload results directly from each polling unit to its website in the election to replace outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari, but most were unable to do so immediately.
That meant results had to be collated manually inside ward and local government counting centers as in previous polls, problems observer missions also criticised as the result of poor planning.
There are fears frustrations over the process could boil over into violence.
In a normally bustling market on Lagos island, one of the most densely populated places in Africa, shops were shut and streets deserted on Tuesday morning.
Tinubu, a southern Yoruba Muslim, and Abubakar, a Muslim from the northeast, are long-time political fixtures who have fought off past corruption accusations. But the emergence of Obi -- a Christian ethnic Igbo from the southeast -- threw the race open.
Buhari, a former army general first elected in 2015, will step down after two terms in office. His critics say he failed in his key promises to make Nigeria safer.
Whoever replaces him must quickly get to grips with Africa’s largest economy and top oil producer, which is beset by problems including a grinding jihadist war in the northeast and double-digit inflation.