NIGERIA: Main opposition candidate for April's presidential election Muhammadu Buhari expresses optimism over the election's credibility

Record ID: 234756

  • Title: NIGERIA: Main opposition candidate for April's presidential election Muhammadu Buhari expresses optimism over the election's credibility
  • Date: 22nd February 2011
  • Summary: LAGOS, NIGERIA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS VOTER REGISTRATION
  • Embargoed: 9th March 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria, Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAEOXVF9XO7DA8BQIX4DIJ4PXVV
  • Story Text: Speaking to journalists in Nigeria's financial capital Lagos, the country's main opposition candidate in April's election said on Saturday (February 19) that he was optimistic this year's elections would be a more credible race than in the past and warned that events elsewhere on the continent and in the Middle East were lessons that needed to be heeded.
    Former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari said in the weekend interview that there was widespread disillusionment with the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), which has dominated politics in Nigeria since its return to democracy in 1999.
    Buhari said events in North Africa, where autocratic governments in Tunisia and Egypt have been toppled by popular uprisings, showed people would no longer accept a rigged vote.
    "With what is happening in North Africa, the Middle East, and the Gulf states, I think the message is getting across to politicians, especially the ruling party, that they either behave themselves or the ordinary people will take over." he said.
    More than 65 million people have registered on a new Nigerian electoral roll, meant to help stamp out the multiple voting and omissions that have undermined previous polls and civil society groups have vowed they will monitor the process closely The PDP candidate has won every vote since the end of military rule, all of them elections marred by intimidation and fraud.
    "Elections must be free and fair, that is the bottom line. If people choose bad legislators, let them freely change them, Buhari said.
    Buhari, who lost two of those races, faces another tough battle against President Goodluck Jonathan. Buhari is from the northern state of Katsina but played down a north-south zoning issue, saying free elections were more important than ethnicity. In the past, the ruling PDP party has agreed internally that candidates from either the north or south rule for two consecutive terms.
    Incumbent Goodluck Jonathan is considered the front-runner in the polls but is resented in parts of the mostly Muslim north because he is a southerner whose candidacy breaks that pact. But Jonathan has overseen reform of the electoral commission and his front-runner position may give him space to put election rigging firmly into Nigeria's history books.
    "Having been the biggest casualty of election rigging from 2003 through to 2007, I think this (election commission) is better led and has therefore raised our hope that the election will be free and fair," Buhari said.
    Buhari ruled Nigeria between December 1983 and August 1985, leading an iron-fisted administration best remembered for its "War on Indiscipline", a campaign against corruption in which politicians were jailed and drug traffickers executed.
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