Nigeria's main presidential hopefuls vote amid logistics issues and insecurity

Nigerians chose Saturday (Feb. 25) a successor to President Buhari among 18 candidates.

Vying for the top office for the sixth time, Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the main opposition party the People's Democratic party cast his ballot in Yola, eastern Nigeria.

"I expect that this is a more credible process than previous ones, and I think it's good that we're improving with every election cycle," Abubakar said.

The presidential candidate for Nigeria's Labour Party, Peter Obi, cast his ballot in Anambra, south-east Nigeria.

He's the one who emerged to challenge the country's traditional two-party system.

He highlighted a watershed election: "It’s an existential election. The country is going through a very difficult time and it requires an urgent, an immediate turnaround to commence."

The other front-runner in the three-horse race for the presidency is the ruling party’s, APC, candidate and political veteran Bola Tinubu.

He voted in his bastion Lagos and commented on how he'd bring economic growth back in Nigeria if elected: " [...] We are not the only country affected by an economy crisis, it's spreading all over the world. And we just have to recalibrate the system and the sense that we are on the path of recovery."

The vote is being carefully watched as Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy and one of the continent’s top oil producers.

The official results for turnout are highly expected. In 2019 33% of voter participated in the election.

Voting officially closed at 01:30 PM GMT but by that time, several polling units still had long queues across the country as voted kick off late.