The electoral body in Niger Republic, the National Independent Electoral Commission, CENI, has declared the ruling party candidate, Mohammed Bazoum as the winner in the February 21 Presidential run off elections.
The 61 year old Bazoum, a former Foreign Affairs Minister polled a total of 2,501,459 which represents 55.75% to defeat his rival, the opposition candidate, Mahamane Ousamane, who got 1,985,736 which translates to 44.25% .
The elections, which had a turnout of about 62.91% out of a total 7.4 million registered voters, was marred by the unfortunate deaths of seven electoral workers when the vehicle they were travelling in hit an explosive device which also severely injured three more workers.
The runoff election was conducted when none of the leading candidates got a clear lead in the last round of the election with the two frontrunners, Bazoum and Ousamane getting 39.3 and 17% of the votes respectively.
But in a swift response even before the electoral umpire released the official vote counts, the opposition candidate, Ousamane had called on CENI to stop the vote count, claiming that there were irregularities during the collation. He further called on his supporters to come out and resist the announcement of the election results which resulted in several supporters converging at the headquarters of the electoral body in Niamey before being confronted by security agents who used tear gas to disperse them.
Niger has been plagued by insecurity brought about by the activities of the Islamic State in West Africa Province, Boko Haram and other armed groups currently operating on its borders with Chad and Nigeria.
To the newly elected President, one of the main challenges facing him is to curb the activities of these militant groups which have killed hundreds of people and displaced more than 500,000 persons according to data obtained from the United Nations.
