The runner-up in Nigeria’s presidential elections convened a meeting with other opposition politicians on Wednesday, seeking a unified response to the weekend vote deemed not credible by international observers.
General Muhammadu Buhari, who according to the official count placed second to governing party candidate Umaru Yar’Adua, went behind closed doors in the capital, Abuja, with representatives of many of Nigeria’s 25 largest opposition parties to consider their options.
The opposition has already rejected the outcome as rigged in favour of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s People’s Democratic Party, and the third-place candidate has said he will challenge the results in court before Yar’Adua’s planned May 29 inauguration.
Opposition party members have said their leaders are considering, among many possibilities, a court case filed in unison or calling supporters into the streets for protests against Obasanjo’s government.
No major opposition party has yet publicly called for demonstrations, which could quickly spin out of control and cause havoc in a multi-ethnic country of 140-million people, most of them deeply impoverished despite the country’s massive oil industry.
Buhari’s spokesperson Abba Kyari said on Tuesday protests will only be organised after long consideration.
The elections were meant to boost civilian rule and stability in Africa’s top oil producer, where about 15 000 people have died in political violence since 1999 as factions fought for power in a political space liberated by the end of strict military rule that year.
Questions about the legitimacy of the elections, which local and international observers said were so flawed as to not be credible, undermined the voting for Nigeria’s first transfer of power from one elected civilian to another.
All other civilian transfers of power between elected officials have been undermined by annulments or military coups. Nigeria gained independence from Britain in 1960.
President-elect Umaru Yar’Adua is the 56-year old governor of a heavily Muslim northern state. He was seen as the hand-picked candidate of Obasanjo, a former military ruler, who won a 1999 election that ended 15 years of near-constant military rule.
Obasanjo’s 2003 re-election was marked by allegations of massive vote rigging. The opposition says this year’s elections were worse, marking the least representative vote to date in Nigeria.
Buhari, who placed second in a 2003 vote won by Obasanjo, also rejected those results as rigged and filed suit. The Supreme Court finally ruled that the vote was fraudulent, but couldn’t determine that the graft had risen to a level that would have caused the outcome to have differed.
That judgement came about two years after the suit was filed.
Obasanjo on Monday called on the courts to settle all election-related matters before the May 29 inauguration.
Dozens of Nigerians have died in civil strife related to the presidential election and a week-earlier vote for state officials that the ruling party also won, and the outcome seemed unlikely to stanch further bloodshed, like a low-intensity armed struggle in the country’s oil-producing region.
Oil prices rose on news of problems with the vote, in part because of concern about Nigeria, but settled again by midweek after widespread protests never materialised. — Sapa-AP