THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE!  CONGRATUILATIONS, NIGERIA!

Yes, it's Morning Time in Nigeria, West Africa, ye AFRICA.
The freedom to choose our leaders can be delayed
but cannot be denied because it's Morning Time,
AFRICA.  What's next?

Richard Yarl
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Obasanjo wins Nigerian presidential election Obasanjo with family and
supporters
after hearing he had won a majority of votes on Sunday

March 1, 1999
Web posted at: 6:54 a.m. EST (1154 GMT)

ABUJA, Nigeria (CNN) -- Retired Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo has been elected as
Nigeria's new president, election officials said Monday.

The election officials confirmed Obasanjo's victory shortly before final
results of
Saturday's poll were due to be published. Obasanjo is now set to become
Nigeria's first civilian leader after 15 years of military rule.
Allegations of vote-rigging
cast a shadow on the final step in the West African nation's long-awaited
return to civilian
rule, and aides to former Finance Minister Olu Falae, Obasanjo's opponent,
said Falae
would contest the results. By Sunday evening, Obasanjo had captured 62
percent of the
vote with 31 of Nigeria's 36 states and the federal capital reporting. With
25.8 million votes
counted, Obasanjo had 15.8 million, to Falae's 9.9 million. But aides to
Falae lashed out
at the voting.  "The vote was completely rigged," Sunday Durodola, the party
secretary for
Falae's Alliance for Democracy, said in a telephone interview from Lagos,
Nigeria's
commercial capital. "We have not had free and fair elections, and Falae will
contest this."

"We cannot be bound by the results released thus far," said Ayo Opadokun,
Falae's
campaign director, said at a news conference at the Independent National
Electoral
Commission, before angrily storming out. Nigerian Presidential Election
Stories


A refusal to recognize the outcome by one of the two presidential candidates
would
taint the vote, but election officials said they would continue to count the
ballots.

Nigeria has never held a presidential election in which the loser accepted
defeat.
In both previous presidential elections, in 1979 and 1993, the apparent
result was
contested by at least one of the candidates.

International observers reported ballot box-stuffing and other serious
voting
irregularities, but it was not clear how much the problem affected the
results.

"Our delegation members and others witnessed serious irregularities and
overt
electoral fraud in a number of states," said former President Jimmy Carter,
who
led a 60-person delegation of election observers.

Carter, added, though, that "a saving factor was that there was no
nationwide
pattern to favor any one party."

Those monitors were to release a detailed report on the elections later
today.

Falae, who had said Saturday he would accept the results if the vote was
fair,
went to the capital, Abuja, today to meet with election officials, Durodola
said.

To officially challenge the election, Falae's party would have to file suit
with
Nigeria's Court of Appeal, a process that could take months.

Obasanjo's People's Democratic Party already earned a majority of seats in
the National Assembly after elections only days before the presidential
tally.

The controversy did not immediately spark public protests. No violence was
reported on the streets of Lagos, often a hotbed of strife in times of
political
dissent.

In Obasanjo's southwestern hometown of Abeokuta, the retired general was
mobbed by several dozen joyous supporters outside his house. Women hugged
him, sang songs and held up evening newspapers celebrating his apparent
victory.

While both Obasanjo and Falae are Yorubas, the dominant people in Nigeria's
southwest, Obasanjo's military past has alienated him from many southerners.

Obasanjo voluntarily handed over power to civilian rule in 1979. But a
military junta
seized back power in 1983 and various military rulers have held power since,
canceling the results of the 1993 vote.

Under the juntas, corruption and mismanagement have cost the country
billions
of dollars of its massive oil wealth, leaving much of its infrastructure
crumbling.

The democratic transition began in June, when the five-year dictatorship of
Gen. Sani Abacha ended with his sudden death. Abacha was followed by
Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who has repeatedly vowed to hand over power
to a civilian government.

Abubakar is to turn over power to the new civilian president on May 29.