(Reuters) - Muhammadu Buhari, an ex-general who first seized power in Nigeria three decades ago in a military coup, closed in on a historic election win on Tuesday which would mark the first time an incumbent has been ousted via the ballot box in Africa's most populous nation.
According to a Reuters tally from 34 of Nigeria's 36 states, the 72-year-old Buhari had 14.6 million votes, testament to the faith Nigerians have put in him as a born-again democrat intent on cleaning up the country's notoriously corrupt politics.
That support compared to 11.3 million for President Goodluck Jonathan, whose five years at the helm in Africa's biggest economy and top oil producer have been plagued by corruption scandals and a Boko Haram Islamist insurgency.
One of Jonathan's redoubts in the oil-producing Niger Delta is yet to report but the gap is so large it is hard to see the leader of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), which has run Nigeria since the end of military rule in 1999, closing it.
Buhari took power in a coup in December 1983 but was ousted in another military takeover led by General Ibrahim Babangida in August 1985. He has since run in several elections and declared himself a convert to democracy.
Bar some technical glitches and the killing of more than a dozen voters by Boko Haram militants in the northeast, the election has been the smoothest and most orderly in recent history - a factor that appears to have played in the outcome.
"There are probably lots of reasons why the PDP might have lost, but I think the key one is that the elections just haven't been rigged," said Antony Goldman, a business consultant with high-level contacts in Nigeria.
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