The United States has congratulated the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the just-concluded election, Bola Tinubu, on his emergence as the President-elect.
In a statement by the State Department spokesman, Ned Price, the US government also felicitated Nigeria on the conclusion of the presidential election.
The US acknowledged the discontent among some Nigerians over the validity of the results amid accusations of voter fraud and concerns over technical glitches.
According to Price, the US government called for calm and urged opposing candidates to register their concerns through established legal mechanisms.
The statement reads: “The United States congratulates the people of Nigeria, president-elect Tinubu and all the political leaders.
“This competitive election represents a new period for Nigerian politics and democracy.
“We understand that many Nigerians and some of the parties have expressed frustration about the manner in which the process was conducted.
“Nigerians are clearly within their rights to have such concerns and should have high expectations for their electoral process.
“Nigerian officials had hoped new Biometric Voter identification technology would make the election the cleanest yet, but malfunctions, long delays, and slow results have fueled the accusations of fraud.
“We call on all parties to refrain from violence or inflammatory rhetoric at this critical time.”
Recall that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, had declared Tinubu as the president-elect after he secured a total of 8,794,726 votes in the presidential election.
Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had the second-highest figure with 6,984,520 votes, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) was next with 6,101,533 votes.
