Why is Africa not learning from past Election History

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As many as 35 people were killed in election violence in Nigeria civil society groups said on Sunday after voters went to the polls in a tight presidential race between President Muhammadu Buhari and businessman Atiku Abubakar.  The groups said the death toll during Africa’s biggest election were higher than that of the 2015 poll which was widely considered to have been orderly, aside from a Boko Hararm attack that killed more than a dozen people.

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Festus Okoye, an Independent National Electoral Commission official, said some people were killed in the southern states of Rivers, Lagos and Oyo, but he could not confirm any figures. A handful of polling stations remained open on Sunday to allow more Nigerians to vote, after the violence, delays in opening poll centers and malfunctioning systems in various states interrupted voting the previous day.

Voters had queued late into the night on Saturday in a few areas of Africa’s most populous nation where polling stations had opened late or ballot machines malfunctioned. A handful of these opened again on Sunday to make up for the delays.  Nearly 73 million eligible voters cast their ballots from a pool of more than 70 presidential candidates in an election which was postponed the previous Saturday, just hours before it was due to begin, due to logistics.

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It was not clear when the outcome of the results would be announced.

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