Bola Tinubu, the politician long regarded as the "father of modern Lagos," has won a close election to succeed Muhammadu Buhari as Nigeria's next president.

Tinubu, "having satisfied the requirements of the law, is at this moment declared the winner and is returned elected," proclaimed Mahmood Yakubu, head of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Wednesday morning.

Tinubu received 8.8 million votes to defeat former associate-turned-foe Atiku Abubakar and surprise frontrunner Peter Obi, who received 6.9 million and 6.1 million votes, respectively, to become president just hours after three opposition parties demanded the cancellation of an election they deemed a "sham."

The former two-term governor of Lagos, widely regarded as the most influential political godfather in contemporary Nigerian history, lost his home state of Lagos to Obi but ultimately won his campaign to become Nigeria's fifth president since the return of democracy in 1999.

In 1992, when he was elected as a senator in Lagos, Nigeria, he began his ascent to stardom. A year later, when the military administration cancelled the presidential elections, he joined a coalition of politicians and civil society to seek new elections.

In 2015, Tinubu's Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) joined Buhari's Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) to establish the All Progressives Congress (APC), which deposed incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan.

Political analysts predicted that it was only a matter of time before Tinubu attempted to seize the presidency for himself, resulting in the "Emi lokan" (Yoruba for "it's my turn") campaign slogan.

Earlier on Tuesday, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), and African Democratic Congress (CDC) held a press conference in which they demanded the annulment of the election results, claiming that the election was a "sham" and consisted of "vote allocation, not collation."