• by Lisa Vives (new york)
• Tuesday, March 31, 2015
• Inter Press Service

Showing a "commendable determination to register their vote and choose their leaders," Nigerians by the hundreds of thousands lined up at polling stations across the country to select the next president and National Assembly of their country, U.S. and British witnesses to the hotly-contested presidential polls observed.

In a joint statement by the British Foreign Secretary and the U.S. Secretary of State, the observer governments "welcomed the largely peaceful vote on March 28."

Concerns over the possibilities of fraud were quietly swept away when the national election commission called the winner of the country's presidential poll as Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Buhari edged out his rival by around two million votes. A phone call from the defeated president, Goodluck Jonathan, reached Buhari's headquarters about five minutes before five with congratulations on the victory.

After 35 of the 36 states' vote totals were tallied, Buhari appeared to have captured 14.9 million votes compared to Jonathan's 12.8 million.

The massive balloting and collection was marred by missteps as the new voter cards failed, sensitive materials were snatched, election officials were held captive, and protestors were tear-gassed.

Thousands of ballots were rejected and some polling stations were closed without notice including in major cities such as Lagos.

Even before preliminary tallies were recorded, the opposition APC rejected the process in Rivers state and denounced the vote there as "a sham and a charade".

A similar complaint came from Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State who complained of soldiers harassing voters, shootings, ballot boxes mishandled, and the arrest of his senior special advisor. "This is the worst act of militarisation of democracy," the governor said.

The new imported biometric machines "largely failed to read voter cards," commented Kayode Idowu, spokesman for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Even the president was affected as three machines failed to recognise the fingerprints of Goodluck Jonathan and his wife.

Unlike in previous years, social media captured many of the conflict images, which were quickly uploaded on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This moved one commentator, Daniel M. Bijimi, to call out on Twitter: "Everyone with an internet enabling phone is now a journalist in #NigeriaDecides and #Nigeria2015!"

Among the citizen photos were two from Rivers state where women are seen in clouds of teargas as they struggled to reach the office of INEC to demand suspension of the electoral commissioner who they claimed was rigging the election for the outgoing president.

In southern Akwa Ibom state, citizen journalists captured the governorship candidate from the opposition displaying sheets of ballots discarded allegedly by rogue staff of INEC and officials of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The number of rejected ballots around the country was disturbingly high. Nassarawa, in the nation's center, registered 10,094 rejected ballots – enough to put either of the candidates way over the top.

In the final hours before victory was called, the major contenders - President Jonathan of PDP, seeking re-election, and Muhammadu Buhari of APC, an ex-military man seeking a return to power – were running neck and neck.

In addition to the PDP and APC, 13 other parties were vying for the nation's top job in polls across 36 states and 68 million registered voters.

Among those commenting on the polls was Nigeria's foremost man of letters, Wole Soyinka, who lamented: "This has been one of the most vicious, unprincipled, vulgar and violent election exercises I have ever witnessed…I just hope we won't go down as being the incorrigible giant of Africa."

© Inter Press Service (2015) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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