Bola Tinubu from Nigeria’s ruling party has taken a strong lead as results are declared from Saturday’s presidential election, amid opposition protests.

Mr Tinubu, 70, a wealthy businessman and former governor of Lagos state, has won 36% of the vote.

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has 29%, while third-party candidate Peter Obi has 25%.

The parties of both Mr Abubakar and Mr Obi have called for the election to be cancelled and rerun.

They alleged that the inability of the electoral commission to upload results to its website showed that the results had been manipulated.

Many voters reported problems with uploading results through the new electronic voting system, which was intended to speed up the process.

The electoral commission says the opposition parties should take their complaints to court and is pressing ahead with the release of results.

If those thresholds are not reached then there will be a run-off round between the top two candidates.

President Muhammadu Buhari is stepping down after serving two terms, marked by economic stagnation and growing insecurity around the country – from an Islamist insurgency in the north-east, a nationwide crisis of kidnapping for ransom and separatist attacks in the south-east.

The election had been seen as a referendum on his time in office but Mr Tinubu seems to have managed to mobilise his supporters to vote.

Earlier on Tuesday, a group of angry protesters denounced the electoral commission, known as Inec, outside the national collation centre in the capital, Abuja.

“Everything happening there is all lies, all lies, lies… they are cooking up results,” one man told the BBC.

Another group held a counter-protest, urging the electoral commission to “complete your job” and calling on “Nigerians to stand up for democracy”.