Nigeria was poised yesterday to record one of the most significant political events on the continent since the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela in South Africa ended white majority rule.
For the first time in the country’s history an incumbent president was about to be unseated, along with the party that has governed, and sometimes misgoverned, Nigeria since the repressive rule of the military drew to a close in 1999.
By yesterday, the Independent Electoral Commission had declared results from 33 of Nigeria’s 36 states, giving the opposition contender, Muhammadu Buhari, a 72-year-old former military ruler, an unassailable lead of 2.7m over President Goodluck Jonathan.
The incumbent, a former zoology lecturer whose five-year tenure has been tainted by corruption scandals and an Islamist insurgency, has pledged to bow out graciously should he be defeated.
Why is this election so important? Africa’s most populous nation has been on a knife-edge for months as rumours swirled of imminent attempts by ruling party barons – terrified of a Buhari presidency – to curtail the electoral process and foist an unconstitutional interim government on Nigerians.
National anxiety was exacerbated by a six-week delay to the polls, in part to allow the military time to pin down Boko Haram insurgents threatening to disrupt the process. As the rhetoric became more poisonous, and ethnically charged, memories were rekindled of the dynamic that came close to tearing Nigeria apart during the 1960s civil war.
In the end, millions queued patiently on polling day and, in their majority, with some sharp regional divisions, placed their faith in a former military ruler and devout Muslim who has pledged to stamp out corruption, restore law and order and create jobs. “People were wonderful and really they wanted to vote. So kudos for Nigerians, whoever wins,” said the outgoing minister for finance and the economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala ahead of final results.
Nigeria’s first transfer of power by ballot could deepen democratic evolution, restore faith in the ballot and boost a continent beset by democratic setbacks.
“We should be able to prove to everybody that if we vote someone in and he disappoints, we will vote him out,” said lawyer Akin Osomo as he voted in Lagos. What now? The weeks to aMay 29 handover will be delicate. A transition team will manage relations between the outgoing and incoming administrations.
Relations, after such a bitter contest, are unlikely to be smooth. Supporters of Mr Jonathan from the oil-producing Niger delta will be smarting from the defeat. Christians from the south are anxious about power shifting back to the mainly Muslim north, from where General Buhari comes.
There is also a strong risk, according to leaders from the Niger delta, that former militants, who have had it good under Mr Jonathan, will try to establish their continuing relevance by causing disturbances. Mr Jonathan’s role in holding the fort will be critical.
“We would expect that it will be a smooth process from here on, but transitions can be difficult. If President Jonathan has an interest in his own legacy he must handle things as a statesmen,” said Kayode Fayemi, Gen Buhari’s chief policy strategist.
What difference does Gen Buhari make for the economy?
In the election build-up, a friend of the opposition contender commenÂted that his biggest fear was not that Gen Buhari would lose but that he would win.
Since last year Nigeria has been buffeted by the oil price collapse, on which the state depends for about 70 per cent of revenues. The currency has been depreciating fast, and foreign reserves are below $30bn for the first time in years. On top of that, untold millions have been spent by Mr Jonathan’s camp on their failed election campaign, and billions are vulnerable to rent-seekers as the administration ekes out its days.
Having taken power at a similarly bleak period in the 1980s, Gen Buhari has a record of imposing austerity. “I think he will deliver. There will be a very different atmosphere in government,” said a founding member of the outgoing ruling party.
But the direction of his intended economic policy is unclear. The coalition that brought him to power hosts an array of competing ideologies, from unreconstructed statists – like himself – to free-market ideologues who given a chance would even sell the state oil company and its assets. Some business leaders in the south who have done well under Mr Jonathan fear the new government will reverse recent policy reforms and threaten their assets.
But the initial response of markets to Gen Buhari’s likely victory was positive.
What will Mr Jonathan do now?
Mr Jonathan has said that if defeated he would bow out of politics and return to his village at Otuoke. Others in his administration may have more to fear as the new government checks the books.
Biometric cards prove vital in fight against fraud
Technology appears to have played a decisive role in ensuring Nigeria’s fraught elections were more credible than they have been in the past.
The ruling People’s Democratic party has railed for weeks about new biometric voter cards and associated card readers, introduced by the Independent National Electoral Commission to eliminate some kinds of fraud. They were unconstitutional, insufficiently tested and risked creating dangerous frustrations on polling day because of delays in accrediting voters, PDP officials claimed.
Western diplomats and civil society activists suggested the party’s real worry was that the technology – designed to lock automatically as soon as the full quota of eligible voters at each polling station had been accredited – would do what it was meant to: prevent fraud.
On the day, despite multiple glitches, the permanent voter cards (PVCs) appear to have curbed the multiple voting and ballot-stuffing that has marred previous elections in Africa’s most populous country. Final results have yet to be announced, although opposition candidate General Muhammadu Buhari appeared to be edging closer to victory yesterday. “The card readers and PVCs won us the elections,” said Kayode Fayemi, policy chief for Gen Buhari.
The elections were postponed for six weeks until last Saturday, partly because tens of millions of eligible voters were at risk of being disenfranchised by the slow and uneven pace with which the cards were distributed.
In some areas, polling agents struggled to get card readers working for the simple reason that they had not taken off a protective plastic screen from the finger pad. On polling day, other failures were more mysterious. Four separate card readers failed to identify the fingerprints of President Goodluck Jonathan, who joked afterwards that he could hardly be a ghost voter.
According to the INEC, in only 300 of 150,000 polling stations nationwide did the technology fail outright, necessitating an extension of the vote. “I think the card reader and the PVC have helped deepen democracy in Nigeria,” says Nasir el-Rufai, a close adviser to Gen Buhari and a governorship candidate. (c) 2015 The Financial Times Limited
