Philip Obaji Jr.
LAGOS, Nigeria—The last time a leader of an opposition party in Nigeria rejected the results of the country’s presidential election, nearly eight years ago, hundreds of people were killed and tens of thousands displaced in the ensuing violence. Now there are fears of a similar scenario unfolding as Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president long tainted by corruption allegations, heads to court to challenge the outcome of the Feb. 23 election that President Muhammadu Buhari easily won.
Atiku, as Abubakar is widely known in Nigeria, lost by nearly 4 million votes, with 11,262,978 against Buhari’s 15,191,847. He and his supporters dispute the claim by Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission that voter turnout was higher in the northeastern states of Borno and Yobe, where Buhari won handsomely, than in any other part of the country, arguing that frequent deadly attacks by the militant group Boko Haram, including on Election Day, would have made it impossible for people to turn out en masse. They are also claiming that the vote totals from Kano, Kaduna, Kebbi and Katsina states, where the president won by more than 2 million votes, were hugely inflated.
“One obvious red flag is the statistical impossibility of states ravaged by the war on terror generating much higher voter turnouts than peaceful states,” Atiku said in a statement after the electoral commission released the official results. “The suppressed votes in my strongholds are so apparent and amateurish that I am ashamed as a Nigerian that such could be allowed to happen.”
He may have a valid point, as civil society monitoring groups pointed to irregularities during the voting process. But at a time of instability in the country, mainly from the threat of Boko Haram, many Nigerians fear what another contested election, with charges of vote-rigging and contentious court cases, could bring; as it stands, at least 53 people were killed in political violence over the weekend of the election. Given Nigeria’s recent history, further violence could add to an already dire crisis involving internally displaced people, who have been pushed out of their homes in northeastern Nigeria, where Boko Haram has waged a brutal insurgency for the past decade that has claimed more than 32,000 lives. Clashes between Muslim herdsmen and mostly Christian farmers have also led to over 60,000 deaths in other parts of northern and central Nigeria since 1999.
In 2011, at least 800 people were killed and over 65,000 displaced in three days of violence after Buhari, who was then challenging incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, claimed that the election Jonathan won was massively rigged. In the next presidential vote in 2015, Jonathan, sensing defeat to Buhari as preliminary results came in, conceded to Buhari in a phone call before the final tally was announced, in order to ensure that the country, as he later put it, did not “slide into anarchy.” It was the first time in Nigeria’s history that an opposition candidate had defeated a sitting president in a free election.
Atiku sees his case as different. “I would have called the victor within seconds of my being aware of his victory” to congratulate him, he said in his statement, “if I had lost in a free and fair election.” A number of Atiku’s diehard supporters back his decision to challenge the elections in court, but some in his circle feel that contesting the result will only dangerously raise tensions. One of his close allies, former presidential candidate Dele Momodu, urged the 72-year-old veteran politician and businessman to instead pick up the phone “and call President Muhammadu Buhari.”
Further political violence could add to an already dire crisis involving more than 1.7 million internally displaced people.
Momodu ran for president in the divisive 2011 election. A number of contenders in last month’s crowded race, which included over 70 candidates, are equally worried about the potential consequences of Atiku’s next steps. On Monday, 12 of them, who have come together under the aegis of the Forum of Presidential Candidates and Political Parties for Good Governance, congratulated Buhari on his re-election at a news conference in Abuja and urged Atiku to drop his legal challenge. He has 21 days after the release of the official results to file a petition contesting them, which would be March 19.
“At his age, he should now avoid any action and utterances capable of fanning the embers of discord, disagreement and violent conduct,” the head of the forum, Shittu Kabir, said. “Nigeria is greater than any personal or class interest.”
There are fears that supporters of the two main political parties—Buhari’s All Progressives Congress and Atiku’s Peoples Democratic Party—could clash ahead of state elections on March 9, when Nigerians will elect 29 governors. The government has put security agencies on alert. Any potential violence could displace more people and worsen the humanitarian situation. In northeastern Nigeria, where Atiku hails from, Boko Haram’s insurgency has forced over 1.7 million people to flee into displacement camps, where conditions are dismal. In some camps, women face sexual abuse and exploitation at the hands of camp officials and security personnel. Aid organizations are also battling to deal with hunger, malnutrition and severe water shortages in many camps.
Tensions are rising, with talk of ethnic reprisals if the vote is formally contested. In Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital and most populous state, where diverse ethnic groups live side by side, rumors have circulated on the streets, and on social media, of a plan to attack traders of Igbo origin, the ethnic group of Atiku’s running mate, Peter Obi. Igbos voted overwhelmingly in support of Atiku, and many from the ethnic group are backing his decision to challenge the presidential vote in court. The spread of these rumors around Lagos—a stronghold of support for the All Progressives Congress—ahead of the gubernatorial elections has forced security agencies into action. Last week, the state police chief stated that the police have “reviewed and redoubled our strategies” to prevent the polls on March 9 from being marred by violence.
Chuma Nnoli, a political analyst and host of a popular talk radio station, Nigeria Info FM, worries that “with the heat the February election continues to create, we might yet witness violence in parts of the country after the court comes out with a verdict, regardless of who it favors.”
“I don’t think we as a country, including our security agencies, are prepared for that,” he adds.
Nigeria needs to get its electoral processes right, and no one will blame Atiku for insisting that the outcome of the presidential election matches the reality on the ground. But challenging an election carries other risks at a time when Nigeria can hardly afford further unrest.
Philip Obaji Jr. is a journalist based in northeastern Nigeria. He has written extensively on the conflict in the region and its impact on people and communities. His work on jihadist groups, terrorism, counterinsurgency, and human trafficking has appeared in numerous publications, including The Daily Beast, The Hill, IRIN News and The Guardian.
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