Abuja - With three quarters of states
counted in Nigeria's election, opposition
challenger Muhammadu Buhari was leading
incumbent Goodluck Jonathan by two
million votes on Monday night.
According to results collated by Reuters,
Buhari had notched up 12 million votes. A
72-year-old general, he has campaigned as
a born-again democrat intent on cleaning up
the corrupt politics of Africa's most
populous nation.
This compared to 10 million for President
Goodluck Jonathan, a one-time zoology
professor whose five years at the helm of
the continent's biggest economy and top oil
producer have been plagued by corruption
scandals and a bloody insurgency by
Islamist Boko Haram militants.
There is still time for a reversal of fortunes,
with some of Jonathan's big support bases
in the oil-producing Niger Delta yet to
report.
In Rivers state, the volatile and hotly
contested home of Africa's biggest oil and
gas industry, Jonathan won a massive 95%
of the vote.
Such results prompted suspicion among
diplomats, observers and sympathisers of
Buhari's All Progressives Congress (APC),
some of whom took to the streets in protest.
In the oil city of Port Harcourt, police fired
tear gas at a crowd of 100 female APC
supporters demonstrating outside the
regional offices of the INEC election
commission.
"Their intention was to destroy INEC
materials," a policeman at the scene told
Reuters.
Disturbing
The weekend vote was marred by confusion,
technical glitches, arguments and occasional
violence but in many places proved to be
less chaotic than previous elections in
Nigeria.
At least 15 people were shot dead on polling
day, most of them in the northeast where
Boko Haram has declared war on democracy
in its fight to revive a mediaeval caliphate in
the sands of the southern Sahara.
The United States and Britain said that after
the vote there were worrying signs of
political interference in the centralised
tallying of the results.
"So far, we have seen no evidence of
systemic manipulation of the process," U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry and British
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said in a
joint statement.
"But there are disturbing indications that the
collation process, where the votes are finally
counted, may be subject to deliberate
political interference," they added.
Such views are likely to fuel an APC belief of
political skulduggery and increase the
chances of a repeat of the 2011 post-
election violence in which 800 people were
killed, most of them in the predominantly
Muslim north.
Even before preliminary tallies were recorded
on Sunday, the party rejected the outcome in
Rivers state and denounced the vote there
as "a sham and a charade".
PDP also painted itself as a victim of
rigging, but said it would make no
difference.
"We are confident of victory," party
spokesperson Femi Fani-Kayode told
journalists. "Any attempt to manipulate
figures or to rig us out from any quarter will
be firmly resisted."
Collation concerns
World powers and international investors are
closely watching the conduct of the poll to
see whether one of Africa's most important
states can improve its patchy record.
Fitch cut Nigeria's credit outlook to negative
early on Monday, citing the political
uncertainty.
However, the stock market climbed 1.7%,
narrowly missing a three-week high in its
seventh consecutive day in the black as
domestic investors bet on a relatively
smooth outcome.
Bonds also gained, dealers said. The naira
traded at 218 against the dollar on the black
market, roughly in line with its levels before
the election.
"If there's no post-election violence, the
market will rise," said Ayodeji Ebo, head of
research at Afrinvest in Lagos.
The northern city of Kaduna, the epicentre of
three days of bloodletting after Buhari lost
to Jonathan in 2011, was tense but quiet as
results trickled in, with the roads void of
traffic and many shops and homes
shuttered.
"People are too scared to come out. On a
normal day, this place is crowded," said Sani
Umar, a 31-year-old trader who sells
watches and sunglasses in the heart of city.

Good

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President Muhammadu Buhari