Obasanjo wins Nigeria poll

Obasanjo wins Nigeria poll

Mr Obasanjo has been re-elected for a second four-year term

The electoral commission in Nigeria has announced that Olusegun Obasanjo has been elected for a second term as president in the country's first civilian-run presidential election for 20 years.

Mr Obasanjo has secured more than 60% of the vote.

We don't want democracy built on fraud. Any house built on fraud will collapse

Opposition spokesman Ibrahim Modibo

But Nigeria's opposition parties have refused to endorse the results of the presidential election at a meeting with the electoral commission.

They say widespread allegations of vote-rigging are throwing the legitimacy of the polls into question.

The manner of their declaration was dramatic with a group of opposition parties storming the stage just minutes before the commission announced the results, says the BBC correspondent at the results centre in Abuja, Dan Isaacs.

Striding to the front of the hall, they were led by Don Etiebet, the chairman of the runner-up, Muhammadu Buhari's party, the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP).

"This was," he shouted, "no election, no election at all."

He added that the electoral commission had connived with the government to manipulate the figures.

ANPP spokesman Ibrahim Modibo told BBC News Online: "There is a need for a real democratic culture. We don't want democracy built on fraud. Any house built on fraud will collapse."

Asked about the possibility of violence in the aftermath of the result, he said: "Any violence is the fault of [electoral commission] Inec and the government for rigging the election."

But the spokesman for Mr Obasanjo's campaign Akin Osuntokun rejected the opposition's allegations.

He said that the opposition parties were rejecting the result because they had lost the election.

"These are people who are trying to drag their country backwards," he told BBC News Online.

'Fraud'

There has also been criticism from some international observers about the handling of elections for the presidency and state governorships.

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The European Union observer team said the elections were "marred by serious irregularities and fraud".

It said that in six states where President Obasanjo won, ballot box stuffing and other cheating was so widespread that the results lack credibility.

The majority of foreign observers praised the organisation of the elections across much of the country, but criticised polls in the south and east - especially in the oil-rich Niger Delta.

The monitoring team from the EU gave a particularly negative assessment saying their observers "witnessed and obtained evidence of widespread election fraud in 13 states".

"The presidential and a number of gubernatorial elections were marred by serious irregularities and fraud - in a certain number of states, minimum standards for democratic elections were not met," the group said in a statement.

The head of the EU mission, Max van den Berg, said that if these problems are not addressed, Nigerian democracy is in trouble.

However, Commonwealth observers gave a more positive assessment saying: "in most of Nigeria a genuine and largely successful effort was made to enable the people to vote freely".

In the short history of democracy, we have never seen anything like this... The whole country is in a state of mourning

Sam Nda-Isai
Buhari campaign spokesman

They added that in some states like Enugu and Rivers State "proper electoral processes appear to have broken down and there was intimidation".

The Washington-based National Democratic Institute said they had some serious concerns finding "ballot stuffing, rigging, voter intimidation, violence and fraud", particularly in the Niger Delta and the south-east.

The International Republican Institute (IRI), linked to the US Republican Party, highlighted results in Cross River, Imo and Rivers States where it had found "outright or attempted fraud".

There have also been reports of violent incidents on election day, including the reported deaths of eight opposition supporters in central Benue State and six opposition supporters in the Niger Delta during political protests.

Another five people are reported to have died in an attack on Sunday on a convoy of cars carrying the president's daughter, who was unhurt.

Security

Mr Buhari's party has threatened mass action if the polls are rigged.

There are concerns that an already tense situation could lead to unrest, says our correspondent Dan Isaacs.

There is now a high security presence in many cities across the country amid concerns that opposition supporters will react angrily to Mr Obasanjo's victory.

Mr Obasanjo - a Christian and former military ruler popular in the south-west - has long been considered the favourite to win, but Mr Buhari, a Muslim, has strong support in the largely Islamic north.

The BBC's Barnaby Phillips says the election has served to solidify the divide between the north, where strict Muslim Sharia law has been introduced, and the mainly Christian south.

The election in Africa's most populous nation is seen as the toughest test for Nigerian democracy since Mr Obasanjo's election in 1999 ended 15 years of military dictatorship.

The goal was to achieve Nigeria's first transition from one elected civilian administration to another.

But what appears to have happened is that Mr Obasanjo's Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has tightened its grip on all the political levers of power.

The PDP won 27 of the 36 state governorships in Saturday's poll - and on the previous Saturday, the PDP won a majority in parliamentary elections.