At 2:20 pm GMT Al Jazeera is reporting that the PDP candiate Yar’Adua has won the Presidential election on 24 million votes, the ANPP’s General Muhammadu Buhari is on 6 million and the AC’s Atiku Abubakar on 2 million.
President Obasanjo has said that the vote was “not perfect.”
We are waiting to see if the opposition choose to challenge the vote through the courts. This process could take as long as 2 years. First an Election Commission must rule, and if that decision goes in favour of the PDP then it would go to the Supreme Court.
This morning world oil prices rose 46 cents to to $66.40 a barrel on concerns that elections may be disrupted by violence.
This evening a militant attack rocked government house in Bayelsa State. Outgoing Governor Goodluck Jonathan Goodluck is standing tomorrow as Vice President. All across Nigeria, opposition groups accused the authorities of abuses ahead of tomorrow’s elections, and the Supreme Court deepened confusion by allowing estranged VP Atiku Abubakar to run.
Monitors are spreading out and will be reporting in through Greenlightnigeria in the next few days. Based on last weekend’s experiences, getting reports back in was quick but we are preparing for a lot more trouble (the attack on government house in Bayelsa is, obviously, not a good sign) so it may take longer to get the full picture this weekend.
Don’t forget you can get your instant reaction to events to us, and we can post it instantly, via Evoca.
Al Jazeera is reporting that:
The Nigerian president’s declaration of a public holiday has delayed a supreme court hearing into whether the vice-president may stand in next week’s election.
Olusegun Obasanjo has designated Thursday and Friday as a holiday, directly threatening the electoral campaign of Atiku Abubakar.
Garbu Shehu, Abubakar’s spokesman, said the holiday was a “pre-emptive strike to subvert the sitting of the [supreme] court”, which had been expected to start hearing the case on his exclusion from the list of candidates on Thursday.
Just got off the phone with a friend who’s a vote monitor during the elections. Not only may this scupper Atiku’s plans, but now all the banks are closed. There will be a lot of people wishing they had made a withdrawal today and not left it till tomorrrow morning…
People seem so used to last minute “surprises” like this . No one is really that shocked.
This Day is reporting:
The All Nigerian People Party (ANPP) presidential candidate, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), yesterday said the federal government has no excuse not to organize the general elections, which is scheduled to hold in a few days time.
“The present government have received unprecedented amount of money in the last eight years and so there is no excuse for the government not to organise the election”.
Rumours of poll delays, INEC and the Courts can’t decide if Abubakar can run, and neither can the Bar Association… the President is having to deny rigging allegations once more… the SSS are telling politicians to cool it and not rig the elections using thugs and gangs… this might not be democracy. It certainly is democrazy…
Peter Preston writes in the Guardian today:
What’s at stake is something that matters hugely to Africa. Nigeria is populous, talented, resourced and dynamic. It is has a natural leadership role, and the inherent wealth to exercise it. And the long, uncertain years of military dictatorship may be over. Obasanjo will pass power to another civilian politician in April. There’s a tentative stability here that could turn into real hope.
