Obasanjo’s nomination challenged

President Olusegun Obasanjo’s main challenger for Nigeria’s ruling party presidential ticket on Monday filed a suit in court to invalidate the incumbent President's nomination. Alex Ekwueme, a former civilian vice president, in his court papers said Obasanjo’s election at the 5 January People’s Democratic Party (PDP) primaries was in violation of party regulations. He is also alleging that ballot papers were numbered by party officials who intimidated voting delegates that those who voted against Obasanjo would be detected. "Obasanjo was not validly elected at the presidential primary of the PDP...in that he failed to comply with the electoral guidelines," Ekwueme said in his court papers. Obasanjo had scored more than 75 percent of the votes cast by more than 3,000 delegates against the 17 percent of Ekwueme, his closest rival. Two other contestants scored less than two percent each. But Ekwueme wants the court to stop the PDP from presenting Obasanjo as its candidate in the 19 April presidential elections and to declare him as the duly elected nominee instead. The court action coincided with the verdict of Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of human rights groups and civil society organisations that monitored the primaries, said that the nomination process of PDP and the main opposition All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) were marred by bribery and intimidation. "Although from the outward observation of the voting process of the parties the elections appear transparent, free and fair, there was widespread bribery of delegates with sacks stuffed with money to influence their votes," said the TMG report published on Monday. "Undue pressure, including subtle threats and intimidation were employed by agents of the government to compel delegates to vote in favour of the preferred aspirants," it added. While Obasanjo emerged the PDP candidate, another retired general and former military ruler like himself, Muhammadu Buhari, emerged the candidate of ANPP with the backing of several state governors in the party’s northern stronghold. General elections scheduled to be held between April and May will be the first since the 1999 vote that brought Obasanjo to office and ended more than 15 years of military rule. The elections are considered a crucial test for Nigeria’s young democracy, coming after a three and half year period when Africa’s most populous country of 120 million has been wracked by ethnic and religious violence that claimed thousands of lives.