Umaru Yar’Adua of Nigeria’s ruling party was declared winner on Monday of a presidential poll rejected by the opposition and condemned by observers as a ”charade”.
The vote for the first handover of power from one civilian leader to another in Africa’s most populous nation and top oil producer was undermined by violence, ballot-stuffing and millions of missing voting papers on Saturday.
Electoral chief Maurice Iwu declared Yar’Adua of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) winner with 24,6-million votes, far ahead of his closest rival, former army strongman Muhammadu Buhari with 6,6-million.
Buhari said he would not accept the result and called on Parliament to impeach President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Yar’Adua said he was ”greatly humbled” by the result, but observers said it lacked credibility.
”These elections have not lived up to the hopes and expectations of the Nigerian people and the process cannot be considered to have been credible,” said Max van den Berg, leader of 150 observers from the European Union.
The United States said the election was flawed but stopped short of calling for it to be overturned.
”These were flawed elections and in some cases deeply flawed elections,” said State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack, adding that problems should be resolved peacefully and according to the Constitution.
World leaders had expressed hopes that Nigeria, West Africa’s economic powerhouse, would emerge as a major force for the spread of democracy across the continent.
Cancellation
A local coalition of civil society observers called for the cancellation of the vote to allow a re-run in Africa’s most populous country, scarred by decades of corrupt dictatorship since independence from Britain in 1960.
”The election was a charade. A democratic arrangement founded on such fraud can have no legitimacy,” they said.
Any cancellation would plunge Nigeria into a constitutional crisis because by law Obasanjo must hand over power on May 29.
Obasanjo said the election could not be described as perfect, but appealed to aggrieved losers to use the courts for any complaints over the next five weeks.
Obasanjo, whose election in 1999 returned Nigeria to democracy, must step down after failing to rewrite the Constitution and staying for a third term.
”Nothing should be done to make our people lose faith in the electoral process and its democratic outcome,” he said.
Analysts had predicted Yar’Adua would win due to unrivalled funding and the powers of incumbency, but Buhari had been expected to put up a credible challenge because of widespread disaffection with poverty and crime.
World oil prices rose on Monday because of the fears of further violence in the world’s eighth largest oil exporter, where militant attacks have already curbed output.
The government has previously labelled critics of the poll coup-plotters and linked them to a failed attempt to blow up the electoral headquarters on election day with a petrol tanker.
Police arrested protesters at the electoral headquarters in the capital, Abuja, on Sunday and banned all rallies.
Meanwhile, EU observers on Monday said at least 200 people were killed in ”unacceptable” election-related violence during the two Nigerian polls, with victims including police and some candidates
”The continuing and widespread use of thugs by a number of political parties created a significant degree of fear and intimidation,” the team said in its report. — Reuters