President Goodluck Jonathan Jonathan’s hope dims heavily even as Buhari maintains slim lead.

Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), is leading the way – albeit by a slender margin – in the 2015 presidential election contest.

After the declaration of results from 26 states (including the federal capital territory), President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has polled a total of 9,953,432 votes.

Buhari’s 10,454,137 votes means he is ahead of the president by only 500,705.

However, it leaves Jonathan with a high mountain to climb, considering that in the 10 states to go (Edo, Delta, Sokoto, Zamfara, Jigawa, Taraba, Yobe, Borno, Benue, Adamawa and Bauchi), he is only expected to win by a convincing margin in Edo and Delta, while Buhari is projected to win majority of the other eight states.

Buhari was leading Jonathan by more than 2 million votes after 19 states and his supporters continued claiming that results from Rivers state would alter the tide, but Rivers has now been named and the odds still favour the opposition candidate.