Nigeria's Jonathan concedes to ex-dictator

A supporter of opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari is dressed up to look like President Goodluck Jonathan as he and others celebrate the victory Tuesday for Buhari in Kano, Nigeria.
A supporter of opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari is dressed up to look like President Goodluck Jonathan as he and others celebrate the victory Tuesday for Buhari in Kano, Nigeria.

ABUJA, Nigeria -- Nigeria's election commission declared Muhammadu Buhari the winner in Tuesday's presidential elections after President Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat.

Commission Chairman Attahiru Jega announced early today that Buhari received 15,424,921 votes to Jonathan's 12,853,162. He said that among 12 trailing candidates the only woman, Remy Sonaiya, received 13,076 votes.

Jega swore that "Muhammadu Buhari ... having satisfied the requirements of the law and scored the highest number of votes is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected."

Jonathan officially conceded defeat to the former general, paving the way for an unprecedented peaceful transfer of power in Africa's most populous nation.

"Nobody's ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian," Jonathan said in a statement in which he congratulated his successor on his victory. "I promised the country free and fair elections. I have kept my word."

Jonathan already had called Buhari, 72, to congratulate him Tuesday evening, Aviation Minister Osita Chidoka said. Chidoka is close to Jonathan, who has governed Nigeria for the past five years.

Celebrations broke out in Buhari's strongholds in northern Nigeria and around Buhari's campaign headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday. Cars honked and people waved brooms in the air -- a symbol of Buhari's campaign promise to sweep out Nigeria's endemic corruption.

This is the first time in Nigeria's history that an opposition party has democratically taken control of the country from the ruling party. Jonathan's party has governed since decades of military dictatorship ended in 1999.

Earlier, Buhari spokesman Garba Shehu said Buhari feared that his victory could be stolen by "tricks" from the government. Jonathan's campaign has denied a warning from Britain and the United States on Monday that they suspected possible political meddling in the final tally of votes from Saturday's election.

Buhari won overwhelmingly in the final state to report results, Borno in the northeast, the birthplace of Boko Haram. Buhari also carried Lagos state, Nigeria's commercial hub with the largest number of voters, according to the results announced Tuesday, although fewer than one-third of voters in the state participated.

Spontaneous celebrations sprang up across cities in northern Nigeria, where Buhari is almost revered. Young men on motor scooters performed wheelies as hundreds of youths chanted: "Change! Change! Change!" and cars honked their horns in support.

In Kano state, Buhari won 1.9 million votes to Jonathan's 215,800, according to Tuesday's results.

The retired general, who said he is a convert to democracy, promised that if he won, he would stamp out an insurgency in the north waged by Boko Haram. The homegrown Islamic extremist group has killed thousands of people, kidnapped hundreds more and has pledged fealty to the Islamic State group, which controls large portions of Iraq and Syria.

Critics and supporters agree that Buhari is the one leader who did not treat the country's treasury as a personal piggy bank. During his 1984-1985 dictatorship he ruled with an iron fist, jailing people even for littering, and ordering civil servants who arrived late to work to do squats.

Buhari stifled the press and jailed journalists to cover up a deepening economic crisis as prices tumbled for the oil on which Nigeria's economy depends. He eventually was overthrown by his own soldiers.

Nigeria's 170 million people are divided almost equally between Christians mainly in the south and Muslims like Buhari who dominate the north. Buhari for the first time won states in the southwest and even took one third of votes in a southeastern state.

The vote counting in Abuja was disrupted Tuesday by a representative of Jonathan's party who protested that the proceedings were partial to Buhari.

"We have lost confidence in you. You are tribalistic! You are partial!" shouted former Cabinet minister Peter Godsday Orubebe to the chairman of the electoral commission counting the vote.

The opposition also has complained that electoral officials are partisan. The count is being carried out in the presence of party representatives, national and international observers, and the media.

Buhari's showing in his fourth bid to become president was boosted by the backing of a coalition of major opposition parties formed two years ago. Buhari also was able to count on voter dissatisfaction with the performance of Jonathan, who has been president since 2010.

Because of decades of military dictatorship, this is only the eighth election since the country won independence from Britain in 1960, and the fifth since democracy was restored in 1999.

A Section on 04/01/2015

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