Umaru Yar’Adua takes office as president of Nigeria on Tuesday, inheriting a catalogue of crises compounded by doubts over his own legitimacy after a flawed election. The 56-year-old state governor was handed a landslide victory in last month’s presidential poll, described as ”not credible” by international observers.
Nigerian oil unions pulled many staff from crude export terminals on the second day of a strike on Friday, but shipments from the world’s eighth largest exporter were uninterrupted, authorities said. The strike by union members in the national oil company and the Department of Petroleum Resources, the industry regulator, began on Thursday.
Gunmen kidnapped six foreign oil workers including a South African from a ship off the coast of Nigeria on Friday, industry sources said, bringing to 22 the number of foreigners held in Africa’s top oil producer. Shots were fired during the abduction by suspected militants in two speed boats, which took place off the coast of the Niger Delta.
Outgoing Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has embarked on a sale of state assets to allies in the private sector in the dying days of his administration, prompting accusations of double standards. Critics say Obasanjo is disregarding due process and paying off his friends with the sales within days of his handover to president-elect Umaru Yar’Adua on May 29.
The outgoing Nigerian government launched a last-minute auction of 41 oil-exploration licences on Friday, ignoring a court order not to sell two of them and widespread criticism over timing and transparency. Most Western oil majors kept away from the sale in which 10 pre-selected investors had already been given preferential bidding rights.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo’s chosen successor, Umaru Yar’Adua, was proclaimed the victor on Monday in a presidential election European Union observers said was not credible and Obasanjo admitted was not perfect. The ballot in the vast oil producer was undermined by ballot-stuffing, violence and a shortage of millions of voting papers on Saturday.
Ruling party candidate Umaru Yar’Adua looked set to win Nigeria’s presidential poll on Monday, early results showed, but monitors condemned the vote as a blow to the country becoming a beacon of democracy for Africa. A definitive result is expected on Monday, when more international observers will deliver their verdicts.
An attempt to blow up the electoral headquarters with a petrol tanker, attacks by thugs, missing ballot papers and low turnout undermined Nigeria’s presidential election on Saturday. The vote should seal the first handover from one civilian president to another in Africa’s most populous nation, scarred by three decades of corrupt military rule.
Troops have intercepted a truck-load of already completed ballots the day before Nigeria’s presidential election, the opposition said on Friday, heightening fears the vote will be rigged. The accusation followed widespread abuses and violence in regional elections last week.
Election irregularities sparked pockets of violence across Nigeria on Saturday in a vote which should lead to the first fully democratic transition of power in Africa’s most populous nation. Saturday’s election of state governors and legislators was a test of the strength of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and should give Nigerians an idea of what to expect from presidential polls in a week’s time.