President Jonathan takes lead in Nigerian election

[News_Editor]

President Jonathan takes lead in Nigerian election

2011-04-18 03:43:43 GMT+7 (ICT)

ABUJA, NIGERIA (BNO NEWS) -- Early results from Nigeria's presidential poll show that President Goodluck Jonathan is leading with almost twice the number of votes as his main rival, the BBC reported Sunday.

Results from 30 of 36 states showed Jonathan had won 20, while ex-military leader Muhammadu Buhari had nine. The winner needs at least 25% of the vote in two-thirds of the 36 states. Official results are expected on Monday.

Counting began as soon as polls closed and Jonathan, who is from the oil-rich Niger Delta region, quickly led the field in the south of Nigeria. Meanwhile, Buhari was seen to be mounting a strong challenge in his heartland, the mainly Muslim north.

Jonathan said after voting that he would leave office if he lost and that the election was a "new dawn in Nigeria's political evolution".

"If the ballot paper means nothing then there is no democracy… Nigeria is now experiencing true democracy where we the politicians have to go to the people," he said.

Buhari, however, insisted the election was not as clean as Jonathan was suggesting.

"There's a desperate attempt by the ruling party to rig this election in a more sophisticated way," Buhari told the BBC. "This time around - the level of awareness and commitment by the masses is what has given me some relief."

International monitors said Saturday's election, in which tens of millions of votes were cast, could be Nigeria's first credible vote for decades. Voting was reported to have generally gone smoothly, despite some reports of fraud and incidents of violence, including two bomb explosions in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri.

Dozens of people were killed in the run-up to the vote. Since November 2010, more than 50 people were killed in violence linked to political party primaries and election campaigns.

Nigeria has a history of violent and deeply flawed elections. Observers from the European Union described the 2007 elections as among the worst they had witnessed anywhere in the world. At least 300 people were killed, and many others injured, in violence linked to the elections. Many of the results led to court challenges.

Federal and state elections in 2003 were also marred by fraud as well as serious incidents of violence that left at least 100 people dead and many others injured.

Between independence in 1960 and 1999, Nigeria produced only two elected governments - both were overthrown in military coups. Nigeria's military ruled the country for nearly 30 of its first 40 years of independence. However, in 1999, Nigeria made a transition to civilian rule. The 1999 elections, which brought a retired general, Olusegun Obasanjo, to power, were blighted by widespread fraud.

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