Nigeria’s recent landmark polls were ”far better” than the elections that brought US President George Bush to power, the country’s former attorney general said on Sunday.
Richard Akinjide, who held the attorney general’s post from 1979 to 1983 when former civilian president Shehu Shagari was toppled in a military coup, said criticism of foul play by Western poll observers was unfair.
”In my view, our elections were far better and fairer than the last presidential elections in the United States,” he said in an interview to the Champion newspaper.
”You remember the Florida debate. I mean Bush versus Gore. The case went to court and up to the Supreme Court,” he said.
European monitors said in an interim report on the Nigerian vote that the April legislative and presidential elections were ”marred by serious irregularities throughout the country and fraud in at least 11 (of Nigeria’s 36) states”.
US monitors from the International Republican Institute (IRI) said they had ”observed incidences of obvious premeditated electoral manipulation”.
Eyebrows have been raised by President Olusegun Obasanjo’s extremely strong performance in parts of southern Nigeria, such as his home state of Ogun, where he won 1 360 170 votes — 99,92% — to his opponent’s 680 votes.
Also unexpected was that the number of votes cast in Ogun in a simultaneous ballot conducted at the same polling stations was much lower than in the presidential poll, only 747 296 in total.
Akinjide said there was ”substantial compliance” in the elections — the first civilian-run polls in two decades in a country wracked by coups and political, ethnic and religious violence.
”No election in the world, whether in the United States, Europe, Asia has witnessed 100% compliance and Nigeria cannot be an exception,” he said.
”We are talking about a country which is four times bigger than the United Kingdom … we have done very well,” he said.
Akinjide, who is a board member of President Obasanjo’s ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), dismissed fears that the leader’s strong victory could turn the country into a one-party state.
”I am not worried at all,” he said. ”In Britain, Labour is the dominant party… the Conservatives and the Liberals are not very strong. And that is part of what democracy means,” he said. – Sapa-AFP