Muhammadu Buhari was elected president of Nigeria, defeating the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan and setting the stage for the first transfer of power from the People’s Democratic Party since the end of military rule 16 years ago.
Buhari, a 72-year-old former military ruler who heads the All Progressives Congress, won 51.7 percent of votes cast in 35 of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory in Africa’s biggest oil producer, the Independent National Electoral Commission said in the capital, Abuja. Jonathan, who assumed office in 2010, received 44.4 percent in the March 28-29 election. Continue...
“It’s a massive, massive democratic revolution for Nigeria,” Clement Nwankwo, executive director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Center, which monitored the election, said by phone from Abuja. “It’s a boost to accountability, to the power of the people to bring a government to account through the ballots.”
Buhari, a northern Muslim, faces the tasks of ending a six-year-old war against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram that’s killed more than 13,000 people and restoring investor confidence in an economy that’s reeling from a 50 percent drop in the price of oil, its main export, since June.
“We are putting our feet on the first wrung of the ladder of democracy,” Folarin Gbadebo-Smith, managing director of the Center for Public Policy Alternatives in Lagos, the commercial capital, said by phone. “We have been able to change a government that did not meet our expectations.”
Rights Abuses
A retired major general who lost three previous elections, Buhari has led Nigeria before, when he overthrew a democratically elected government on Dec. 31, 1983. He built a reputation among his backers as a ruler who cracked down on corruption and crime before being ousted by the army 20 months later.
His detractors say his government was remembered for human rights abuses, with hundreds of politicians, businessmen and journalists jailed.
“No-one truly knows what it will look like under a democratic system,” Manji Cheto, a London-based vice-president at consultancy Teneo Intelligence, said by phone. “He has a reputation of incorruptibility in a country where this attribute is believed to be a rarity for individuals occupying top positions. What remains to be seen is whether his personal integrity will have a positive impact on his government.”
Economic Challenge
Nigeria, which has Africa’s biggest economy and population, faces economic challenges. During the campaign, Buhari pledged to clamp down on corruption, boost average annual growth to 10 percent and create at least 1 million jobs a year.
Nigeria, which has Africa’s biggest economy and population, faces economic challenges. During the campaign, Buhari pledged to clamp down on corruption, boost average annual growth to 10 percent and create at least 1 million jobs a year.
The decline in the price of oil, source of 90 percent of the West African nation’s foreign-exchange income and more than two-thirds of government revenue, will reduce the economic growth rate to 4.8 percent this year from 6.1 percent in 2014, the International Monetary Fund said in a report Monday. The naira has weakened 18 percent in the past six months, the steepest drop of 24 African currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
Nigeria is ranked 136 of 175 countries in Transparency International’s 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index, on par with Russia and Iran.
Fitch Ratings cut Nigeria’s credit-rating outlook to negative on Monday, citing the drop in oil prices and the tight election contest, while affirming the country’s BB- rating, three steps below investment grade.
Former militants in the oil-rich Niger River delta, Jonathan’s home ground, had threatened before the vote to stoke unrest if Buhari won the vote.
Former militants in the oil-rich Niger River delta, Jonathan’s home ground, had threatened before the vote to stoke unrest if Buhari won the vote.
Nigeria faces “an incredibly delicate and potentially explosive transition of power,” John Ashbourne, Africa economist at Capital Economics in London, said in e-mailed response to questions. “No Nigerian president has ever conceded power. It remains unclear whether elements in President Jonathan’s PDP will be willing to bow out gracefully.”
A successful change in power would bode well for Africa’s largest economy, said Bismarck Rewane, chief executive officer of Financial Derivatives Co.
“The victory will send the right signal to the nation’s leadership,” he said by phone from Lagos, the commercial capital. “There will be massive inflow of foreign investment.”
No comments:
Post a Comment