ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan looked set for a close race against ex-military ruler Muhammadu Buhari yesterday as results trickled in from a vote broadly deemed to have been the most credible for decades.
Tens of millions of Nigerians turned out for the polls, from the tin-roofed shacks of the Niger Delta, Jonathan’s southern home region, to the dusty alleyways of Daura, Buhari’s village in the mostly-Muslim north.
Early results showed Jonathan had done well in much of predominantly Christian southern Nigeria, including areas such as the most populous city of Lagos, where his ruling party had struggled in a parliamentary election a week ago.
But first results from heavily Muslim northern states showed Buhari with a wide lead and a high turnout which could outweigh his lack of support in the south. Tensions ran high in the north as Buhari’s followers feared an attempt to rig the vote count.
“Across the country it will be close,” former government minister Nasir el-Rufai, a Buhari supporter, told Reuters at a vote counting centre in the capital Abuja.
“My only fear is it will become a north-south issue if we see a situation where Buhari sweeps the north and Jonathan does well in the south. We may have to go to a run-off,” he said.
To win in the first round, a candidate needs a simple majority and a quarter of the vote in two thirds of the 36 states. There are more than 73 million registered voters and 120,000 polling stations. Final results could take days.
A run-off between Jonathan and Buhari could risk polarising voters along regional lines in the country of 150 million, where ethnic and religious rivalries bubble near the surface.
Jonathan is the first head of state from the oil-producing Niger Delta. Should he become the first sitting president to lose an election, there could be protest in his home region.
But Buhari commands strong grass-roots support in the north, where some believe Jonathan is usurping their right to another four years in power. Jonathan inherited office after his predecessor, northerner Umaru Yar’Adua, died last year in his first term, interrupting a rotation between north and south.
“If Jonathan wins it’s because he used his government power. It looks like he has done too well,” said Habib Bazallahi, a local official from Buhari’s party, leaning through a classroom window in the northern city of Kano to watch a vote count.
“Buhari says he won’t go to court if he loses but that doesn’t mean us, his supporters won’t fight. We are ready. We’re going to look for Kalashnikovs, bazookas … There is no going quietly this time,” he said, to cheers from the darkness.
