Upheaval: Nigerian opposition wins presidential election
Published 1 April 2015
Former General Muhammadu Buhari, the leader of the Nigerian opposition, has won a decisive victory over the incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan in the Nigerian general election. The result of the election, held over the weekend, may signal a dramatic shift in Nigeria’s political history: If Jonathan allows for a smooth and peaceful transition of power, it will mark the first time in Nigeria’s 55-year history of a civilian government handing power to an opposition party to form another civilian government. For most of its history, Nigeria has been ruled by military governments. Jonathan has conceded defeat, but it is not clear whether elements in Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would be willing to relinquish power after holding it since 1999. Based on Nigeria’s checkered political history, it is possible that the PDP may fight the results in the courts, on the streets – or even from the barracks. The Nigerian election result would likely have a ripple effect across the continent, from South Africa, where the seemingly unassailable African National Congress (ANC) has held power since 1994, to countries such as Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, which do no more than pay lip service to the concept of pluralist democracy and opposition politics. The election results follow several unexpected political upheavals in Africa which may suggest incumbents today can no longer afford to ignore the will of the people and cling to power indefinitely.
Former General Muhammadu Buhari, the leader of the Nigerian opposition, has won a decisive victory over the incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan in the Nigerian general election. The result of the election, held over the weekend, may signal a dramatic shift in Nigeria’s political history: If Jonathan allows for a smooth and peaceful transition of power, it will mark the first time in Nigeria’s 55-year history of a civilian government handing power to an opposition party to form another civilian government.
For most of its history, Nigeria has been ruled by military governments.
The New York Times reports that by Tuesday night, election tallies showed Buhari leading with nearly 15 million votes, well ahead of Jonathan, with 12.8 million votes.
The president called Buhari to concede defeat, according to Buhari’s party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). Lai Mohammed, a spokesman for the APC party, said: “He telephoned Muhammadu Buhari to congratulate him on with his victory. He will be a hero to concede because the tension will go down dramatically.”
Mohammed told supporters at the APC headquarters in Abuja that at “exactly 5.05[p.m.] the call came through. So anybody who now tries to foment trouble is doing it on their own.”
Analysts said that the stunning victory of the opposition was a milestone for a pluralist, multiparty democracy on the continent. Still, it was not clear whether elements in Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would be willing to relinquish power after holding it since 1999. Based on Nigeria’s checkered political history, it is possible that the PDP may fight the results in the courts, on the streets – or even from the barracks.
Buhari, a 72-year-old Muslim from northern Nigeria, headed a military government for eighteen months (31 December 1983 - 27 August 1985), and gained a reputation a strict, no-nonsense disciplinarian. He emphasized his military background in the current campaign, vowing to clean up corruption and uplift the morale of the armed forces.
His All Progressives Congress party carried Nigeria’s two biggest cities, Lagos and Kano, and gained impressive victories in its northern strongholds. Jonathan’s votes came mostly from his home territory in the south, which includes the oil-rich Niger delta. His campaign was hampered, however, but what appears to be a lackluster election-day get-out-the- vote effort.
Analysts noted that Buhari made a strong showing in states in the south and southwest. “Those are fault-line states,” Darren Kew, a Nigeria expert at the University of Massachusetts at Boston who is observing the election, told the Times. “The PDP” — Mr. Jonathan’s party — “had a good machine on the ground there” that nonetheless failed to deliver for the president.
In all, Buhari won twenty states, while Jonathan took fifteen and the capital city, Abuja. Buhar has lost three previous elections, including at the hands of Jonathan in 2011.
John Oloyede, a legal expert and political analyst on Nigeria’s Channels television, said: “He is the first Nigerian ruler, head of state, to congratulate somebody who is going to take over from him. This is the kind of change that Nigeria has been yearning for. On this kind of change, this conduct, Nigeria will be able to build and move to a higher level.
“I feel elated as a Nigerian. We are making good on our words, the president has made good on his word, and by the grace of God we will have peace.”
The election results were a victory, and redemption, for Buhari, who spent time in jail after his short tenure in power three decades ago. For Jonathan, 57, the result was a painful defeat. He was called “the accidental president” when he was elevated to the presidency five years ago following the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua.
An easy-going, garrulous man who always wore a fedora in public appearances (including indoors), Jonathan gave the impression of a bumbling naïf who was in over his head, stumbling unaware from crisis to crisis. Analysts say that his political obituary will not only note the fact that he was the first Nigerian president to have been defeated in an election, but that he failed to recognize a deadly insurgency by the Islamist militants Boko Haram – and that when this recognition was finally forced on him, he put together an anti-Boko Haram campaign which was at the same time heavy-handed and costly in Nigerian civilian lives, but also incompetently and ineffectively run. Many saw his lackluster response to the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok – which Jonathan’s wife initially publicly denied, blaming the girls’ parents for trying to extract monetary compensation from her husband’s government – as emblematic of his tenure as a whole.
It was not until mid-January, when three of Nigeria’s neighbors – Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Benin – insisted on joining the fight against Boko Haram after the Islamists expanded their operation to the territory of these countries, that the tide has turned and the insurgents began to lose ground.
Another change which has made a difference in the campaign against Boko Haram since January has been the employment by the Nigerian military of South African mercenaries instead of poorly motivated Nigerian soldiers in key battles.
Nigeria may be the continent’s most populous country and the continent’s largest economy, but its military has been hollowed out by corruption and demoralized by command incompetence. Without the help of its neighbors – help which Jonathan strenuously rejected for three years, at an exorbitant cost in Nigerian lives and massive destruction – and the assistance of foreign mercenaries, a victory against Boko Haram is beyond the Nigerian military in its current state.
Buhari’s reputation for strictness and probity led the Nigerian military to intervene in the election six weeks ago in a desperate effort to save Jonathan’s faltering campaign. The country’s top security officers, who are beholden to Jonathan, forced the country’s electoral commission to delay the vote for six weeks.
The additional six weeks of campaigning and spending gave the incumbent — with far deeper pockets than Buhari — a significant advantage.
It also allowed the armies if Chad and Cameroon – especially the effective Chadian air force – to intensify the campaign against the Islamist, with the deployment of South African mercenaries adding to the overall effectiveness of the counterinsurgency effort. The offensive by Nigeria’s neighbors and the South African mercenaries has reclaimed much of the territory Boko Haram had held in the northeast.
The Nigerian military has claimed the credit for the offensive and its successful results, but the war-weary Nigerians were not fooled by these largely empty claims, and the Jonathan’s government received little of the credit for pushing back Boko Haram.
Wole Soyinka, a leading Nigerian author, Nobel laureate, and political commentator, welcomed the election results. “It was inevitable,” he told the Guardian. “The groundswell of discontent was bound to overwhelm the Jonathan group sooner or later.
“Unambiguously, it is good that the Jonathan government has been removed. It was impossible. Even a plunge into the unknown was preferable to what was going on. We were drowning.”
He added: “The opposition behaved itself very well and enabled the democratic principle. They fought the good democratic fight and that was very cheering. This business of the right of incumbency, which had been a sickening culture in this country, is finished and that’s a marvelous event. So I’m very upbeat about what happened.”
“It is very significant in our democratic growth, in grounding democracy and consolidating it,” Ebere Onwudiwe, a political scientist with the Ken Nnamani Center for Leadership and Development, told the Times. “We can’t have a one-party democracy. We’re setting a very great example for the rest of the smaller states in Africa.”
Observers note that the Nigerian election result would likely have a ripple effect across the continent, from South Africa, where the seemingly unassailable African National Congress (ANC) has held power since 1994, to countries such as Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, which do no more than pay lip service to the concept of pluralist democracy and opposition politics. In some of these countries – Zimbabwe and Sudan, for example – they have dispensed with the lip service altogether a long time ago.
Adekeye Adebajo, a Nigerian academic and executive director of the Center for Conflict Resolution in South Africa, told the Guardian: “It really is an incredible achievement in Nigeria’s history. In fifty-five years, no ruling party has allowed itself to be ruled out of power.”
He added: “It is an example to the rest of the continent because Nigeria has the biggest economy and biggest population. It sends a message that corruption and security — as in not protecting civilians from Boko Haram — are things that can be punished at the ballot box. If you link accountability to performance, it is very significant.”
Emeka Anyaoku, a Nigerian who is a former secretary general of the Commonwealth, said Jonathan’s swift concession would reduce the likelihood of violence. “He has demonstrated by that act an uncommon grace and nobility,” he told Channels television. “He’s done our country proud and I believe has set a worthy example to fellow African countries.”
The result in Nigeria follows several unexpected political upheavals in Africa which may suggest incumbents today can no longer afford to ignore the will of the people and cling to power indefinitely.
- In Ivory Coast in 2011, the incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to accept election defeat but was removed by force following bloody riots, and is now awaits trial at the international criminal court.
- In 2012 in Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade used a disputed court ruling to seek a third term as president, but protesters took the streets and he was defeated in the election.
- Last October, Burkina Faso’s Blaise Compaoré tried to amend the constitution to extend his 27-year presidential rule, but tens of thousands of people took to the streets and stormed parliament, forcing him to flee with his family.
“These opposition victories, save for Senegal in 2000, have all come since 2010, which signifies an unprecedented growth of political maturity in the region.
“Of course, Nigeria is, by far, the biggest and most influential example to date, and I think this could potentially have positive effects for the region. There are of course lingering concerns about post-election violence, much like we saw in Ivory Coast in 2010, but thus far, Nigerians should be applauded for the manner in which they have conducted themselves.
“The Nigerian electorate defied the many ominous and foreboding headlines, as well as ongoing domestic strife, and have set a positive example for the region.”
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