Nigeria’s president-elect Umaru Yar’Adua on Tuesday faced a growing tide of discontent after being declared winner of a disputed poll that even the outgoing head of state admitted was far from perfect.
In his first press briefing late on Monday, Yar’Adua issued an appeal for national unity, amid opposition threats to challenge his victory in court and sharp criticism of the lecture from foreign and domestic monitors.
”The contest has come and gone,” said the leader-to-be of the world’s sixth-largest oil-exporting nation. ”So must our differences, in the interest of the greater good.”
Yar’Adua (55), a mild-mannered Governor of one of Nigeria’s northern sharia-law states, ran for election with the backing of mentor President Olusegun Obasanjo and his ruling party.
The national election commission said Yar’Adua won Saturday’s ballot with 24,6-million votes, well ahead of his two main rivals. But foreign observers slammed the credibility of the poll that — along with state polls the week before — claimed at least 200 lives, and opposition parties rejected the result.
”The just-ended elections in Nigeria, while they produced a new government, also produced a highly questionable democracy,” said Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, an analyst with New York-based Eurasia group.
Vote marred
Heralded as a showcase election marking the first peaceful civilian-to-civilian handover since independence in 1960 in violence-prone Nigeria, the vote was marred by fraud, electoral delays and political thuggery.
The country’s largest observer group demanded the annulment of the vote and described the election as ”a charade” set up in a deal rigged by the government and the national election commission.
”We call on the international community not to recognise these discredited elections and not to confer legitimacy on any government that emerges therefrom,” said Innocent Chukwuma, head of the Nigerian monitors.
The United States said it was ”deeply troubled” by the violence and voting irregularities and the European Union said the vote was ”not credible” and fell short of international democratic standards.
Even Obasanjo admitted the polls had been far from perfect and called on the country to do better next time. Seeking a way forward, the president urged voters and parties to take complaints to the courts and called on the electoral commission and the judiciary to put wrongs right within the next five weeks before he steps down on May 29.
”After all, in another four years, there will be an opportunity for a fresh contest which I hope will take care of ballot-paper and ballot-box malpractices,” he said.
Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, in Nigeria as the head of an observer team, said the handling of the election had marked ”a step backward”, but voiced hope that voter frustrations would be resolved peacefully.
”There is a delicate five-week period where everything should go properly,” Albright said.
Track record
Yar’Adua has a track record of financial prudence, public service and accountability and is among the few governors recently absolved of corruption by the country’s anti-graft agency. On being elected governor of Katsina in 1999, Yar’Adua immediately made public his assets.
He has promised to tackle corruption, a major issue in a country regularly ranked among the most corrupt on the planet by global watchdog Transparency International.
Turnout was low for Saturday’s presidential and legislative elections after ballot papers printed at the last minute arrived hours late, or not at all, in many of the 120 000 voting stations of Africa’s most populous nation.
The chaos was partly caused by an 11th-hour Supreme Court decision to allow Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who is facing corruption allegations, to run in the election, overruling his disqualification by the election commission.
That left the commission with the mammoth task of reprinting ballots overseas for 61,5-million eligible voters and getting them to booths in time.
One-time military ruler Muhammadu Buhari came second in the election with 6,6-million votes, while Abubakar was third with 2,6-million votes. Both have criticised the poll as unfair and undemocratic and said they will take the matter to court. — Sapa-AFP