Nigeria’s Ruling Party Keeps Majority in General Elections
April 30, 2011, 12:07 PM EDTBy Elisha Bala-Gbogbo
(Updates to elevate quote from election panel to third paragraph.)
April 30 (Bloomberg) -- Nigeria’s ruling party retained a majority in national legislative and state-governor elections that were called the cleanest in a decade in Africa’s top oil producer, according to partial results released by authorities.
The People’s Democratic Party took 45 of the 72 Senate seats declared to date and 123 of 234 seats in the lower chamber, more than twice the seats in both houses than any other party in the April 9 elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission said. The opposition Action Congress of Nigeria took 13 Senate and 47 House of Representatives seats. Others won 16 Senate and 64 House seats.
While the elections were marred by violence, and there were cases of irregularities including ballot snatching, “the election represents a significant improvement over previous exercises since 1999,” the Nigerian Election Situation, a coalition of 22 civic groups monitoring the vote, said today in an e-mailed statement.
The ruling party also won 18 of the 26 governorships declared in the April 26 vote including Bauchi and Kaduna states, where voting was delayed two days by security concerns, the commission also known as INEC said.
The Action Congress of Nigeria captured Lagos, which includes the commercial capital, as well as Ogun and Oyo in the southwest, the party’s stronghold, while the All Nigeria People’s Party won in the northeastern Borno and Yobe states and in Zamfara state, in the northwest.
Military Rule
The Congress for Progressive Change won one state. The state vote is the last stage in an election process that local and international observers said was the fairest since military rule ended in Nigeria in 1999.
Re-run elections will be held on May 6 in parts of the southeastern Imo state after the initial vote was declared “inconclusive” because the collation of results was marred by irregularities, the electoral agency said.
The remaining 10 states will hold their elections when the tenures of the current governors run out.
Nigeria is the fifth-largest source of U.S. oil imports. The Hague-based Royal Dutch Shell Plc; Exxon Mobil Corp. of Irving, Texas; Chevron Corp. of San Ramon, California; Total SA of France; and Italy’s Eni SpA run joint ventures with the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. that pump more than 90 percent of the West African nation’s oil.
PDP Lock
The PDP, which has won all the presidential elections since 1999 when the country returned to civil rule, won the April 16 presidential election with incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan defeating his closest rival, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, a northern Muslim, by a 57 percent to 31 percent margin, the electoral commission said.
Jonathan’s victory triggered riots across the mainly Muslim north that killed more than 600 people and led to the burning of churches, mosques and homes, the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress said April 25.
At least 75,000 people were forced to flee their homes as a result of the violence, the National Emergency Management Agency said on April 28. About 55,000 of them are in camps for the displaced, while the remaining 20,000 have been taken in by family members or friends, according to the agency.
Nigeria, with about 150 million people, is roughly split between a mainly Christian south and a north dominated by Muslims. While Buhari won all 12 northern states, Jonathan, a Christian, took 23 of 24 central and southern states.
--Editors: Todd White, Paul Richardson
To contact the reporter on this story: Elisha Bala-Gbogbo in Abuja at ebalagbogbo@bloomberg.net;
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.
