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Nigera fury vote fraud { April 22 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=2608437http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=2608437
Jubilant Obasanjo Ignores Fury Over 'Vote-Rigging'
Tue April 22, 2003 08:44 PM ET
By Daniel Balint-Kurti
ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's newly re-elected president Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday blithely ignored a torrent of claims that his spectacular victory was achieved by crude vote-rigging.
Opposition parties, most foreign observers and the State Department voiced reactions ranging from fury to disbelief after the outcome of the April 19 presidential election was chaotically proclaimed on Tuesday night.
The elections had been seen as a milestone in the transition from military to civilian rule in troubled Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and biggest oil producer.
The main opposition party said the polls had instead been the target of a massive crime and warned it would not recognize any government formed on their basis.
In a victory speech, Obasanjo, a born-again Christian, made no reference to the protests.
"The people of Nigeria have spoken, loud and clear, with their votes. They have voted for one united, harmonious Nigeria and no leader should deny them their hearts' desire," he said in the televised address to Africa's most populous nation.
"I am delighted to say that electorally, Nigeria has come of age," he said after European Union observers reported they witnessed electoral fraud in 13 of Nigeria's 36 states.
In Washington the State Department talked of "widespread and often credible claims of electoral malfeasance."
Obasanjo even had some avuncular advice for his principal adversary, Muhammadu Buhari, whose aides were spitting fire after results showed the northern Muslim had received 12.7 million ballots compared to the incumbent's 24.5 million.
"Good politicians should be good sportsmen, showing magnanimity and humility in victory and gallantry and good naturedness in defeat," the president said.
"FEEL THE ANGER IN THE MOSQUES"
There were many who feared that aggrieved opposition supporters in traditional troublespots might not respond in such a spirit.
At least 25 people have been killed since last Saturday's vote. More than 10,000 people have died in ethnic, religious and political clashes in Nigeria since a 1999 military-supervised election put Obasanjo in office.
"You can feel the anger in the mosques. The Imams and the worshippers all see Obasanjo's victory as a robbery," Shehu Sani, a human rights campaigner, said from Kaduna, capital of the mainly Muslim north.
Analyst Lindsay Barrett said discontent would be exacerbated in the Niger delta, the oil-producing area where ethnic rivalry and repeated protests over environmental degradation have cost many lives.
"I am sitting in a state where Obasanjo was credited with 100 percent victories, and there is no celebration," he said, speaking from Rivers state. Buhari's All Nigeria Peoples Party said the election fraud had been "on a scale that has never been witnessed in the history of criminality in Nigeria."
"Any government that is formed on the basis of this so-called election shall be illegitimate and we shall not recognize it," the party said.
It alleged that hundreds of its militants had been detained around the country and it refused to sign off on the national electoral results. It may challenge them in special courts. "The refusal to sign a results sheet does not invalidate the results. An election has been conducted, a winner has been declared and that's the law," Hakeem Baba Hamed, secretary of the Independent National Electoral Commission, told Reuters.
His boss, INEC chairman Abel Guobadia, was flanked by heavily armed police when he proclaimed Obasanjo the winner at an impromptu venue in the capital Abuja.
The scheduled announcement was delayed and disrupted when opposition leaders stormed into the media center and vented their anger.
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