Obasanjo wins party nomination for second term

Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday was declared the ruling party’s candidate for April elections after he scored an overwhelming victory to beat off the challenge of three rivals. Obasanjo scored 2,642 votes, more than 75 percent of total votes cast by delegates, leaving his closest rival Alex Ekwueme, a former vice president, trailing with 611 votes – just over 17 percent. The other contestants, Abubakar Rimi, a former state governor, and ex-party chairman, Barnabas Gemade, scored a paltry 159 votes and 17 votes respectively. But Obasanjo was magnanimous in victory, praising the other contestants for the ticket of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for giving a good fight. He also used the opportunity to present his Vice President Atiku Abubakar as his running mate for presidential election set for 19 April. “The success of the primaries has confirmed the resilience of the democratic principles in PDP,” Obasanjo said. “The victory we have here today is not victory for the Obasanjo and Atiku ticket. It's not defeat for anybody, it's victory for the PDP.” But his rivals condemned the electoral process that gave him victory as flawed. “I tell you frankly that from my experience in the last few weeks, everything appears to have been organised to make this convention a charade,” Ekwueme, the president’s main challenger, said. “I can't in my conscience accept a voting system that is not in accordance with the regulations of our party. A good loser has to be a good loser when the game is played according to the rules, but not otherwise,” he added. Ekwueme alleged that delegates were intimidated by the government through “carrot-and-stick” tactics to vote for the incumbent. He said unknown to other contestants the party leadership had given serial numbers to ballots given to delegates in such a way to detect how they voted, subverting the principle of secrecy of votes. The other contestants spoke in similar vein, with Rimi predicting that many disaffected party members will be leaving the PDP for other political parties. The PDP convention has started of Friday, with actual voting beginning on Sunday evening and continuing overnight. With the conclusion of the convention the party becomes the first of 30 political parties vying in this year’s elections to announce its presidential nominee. The polls will be the first since Obasanjo’s election in 1999 ended more than 15 years of military rule. The vote is also considered crucial for Africa’s most populous country of 120 million being another attempt to organise a first successful civilian transition of power in the country’s history. Previous attempts in 1966 and 1983 had been accompanied by widespread electoral violence resulting in military intervention. Fears of violence have also been heightened by Nigeria’s worst cycle of ethnic and religious violence in the past three years, which have claimed thousands of lives.