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Port Harcourt (Nigeria) (AFP) – Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar will challenge incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari to the Nigerian presidency early next year after winning the Democratic People's Party's primary, a said Sunday an AFP reporter.
Abubakar, 71, garnered 1,532 votes, surpassing his main rival, Aminu Tambuwal, governor of the state of Sokoto, in the north of the country, which garnered 693 votes at the party convention in Port Harcourt , an oil hub.
"Thank you for choosing me," Abubakar said on Twitter. "It's a victory for all of us – the task of getting Nigeria back to work is starting now," he wrote, before the final results were known.
Twelve candidates were in the running for the PPP inauguration, decided at the weekend primary by some 3,000 party delegates.
Abubakar has already been presented to the presidency four times. He has amassed a huge fortune in the fields of import-export, oil, agriculture and telecommunications.
Nigerians will elect governors and lawmakers, as well as the president, in February and March elections next year.
