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Nigeria: Muhammadu Buhari elected President
Muhammadu Buhari has been elected president of Nigeria, defeating the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan and setting the stage for the first transfer of power from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) since the end of military rule in 1999.
Buhari, a 72-year-old former military general who heads the All Progressives Congress (APC), won 52.4 percent of votes cast in all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory in Africa’s biggest oil producer, according to tallies by the electoral authorities.
Jonathan received 43.7 percent in the March 28-29 election. He called Buhari to congratulate him, an opposition spokesman, Lai Mohammed, told reporters in the capital, Abuja.
“It is a massive, massive democratic revolution for Nigeria,” Clement Nwankwo, executive director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Center, which monitored the election, said by phone from Abuja. “It is a boost to accountability, to the power of the people to bring a government to account through the ballot.”
Buhari, a northerner, faces the tasks of ending a six-year-old war against the Islamist militant al-Qaeda-linked group – Boko Haram that has killed more than 13,000 people and restoring investor confidence in an economy that is reeling from a 50 percent drop in the global price of oil, its main export, since June.
“We are putting our feet on the first rung of the ladder of democracy,” Folarin Gbadebo-Smith, managing director of the Center for Public Policy Alternatives in Lagos, the commercial capital, said by phone. “We have been able to change a government that did not meet our expectations.”
Market Reaction
Yields on Nigeria’s US$500 million of dollar bonds due July 2023 fell 28 basis points to 6.21 percent as of 5:38 pm GMT (12:38 pm EDT), the lowest level since December 9.
Rates on the notes dropped below those of Kenya’s US$2 billion of debt securities due June 2014 for the first time since December 11, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The Nigerian Stock Exchange Index rose to the highest level since January 6 before the final results were announced, paring first-quarter losses to 8.4 percent, still the worst performer among 14 African indexes tracked by Bloomberg.
A retired major general who lost three previous elections, Buhari has led Nigeria before, when he overthrew a democratically elected government on December 31, 1983. He built a reputation among his backers as a ruler who cracked down on corruption and crime before being ousted by the army 20 months later.
Nigeria, which has Africa’s biggest economy and population, faces economic challenges. During the campaign, Buhari pledged to clamp down on corruption, boost average annual growth to 10 percent and create at least 1 million jobs a year.
Source: Bloomberg