Nigerian Ex-Ruler Poised to Regain Power

Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired army general and onetime ruler of Nigeria, Sunday appeared set to return to power nearly 20 years after leaving office.

Early returns from voting Saturday suggested that Obasanjo would defeat rival presidential aspirant Olu Falae, a former finance minister.

But Falae, the joint candidate of the southwest-based Alliance for Democracy and the right-wing All People’s Party, called the vote a farce and said he will challenge the result. Obasanjo, who aides said was “elated” by the preliminary results, is the flag-bearer of the center-left People’s Democratic Party, which won earlier local, state and legislative elections.

Up to 40 million voters were expected to cast ballots in Saturday’s poll, which signaled an end to 15 years of military rule in Africa’s most populous nation. Complete results were not expected until sometime today.

Victory for Obasanjo, 61, would represent a significant shift of power from the country’s largely Muslim and Hausa-speaking north, which has dominated Nigerian politics since the country attained independence from Britain in 1960. Obasanjo, a native of the southwest, is, like Falae, a Christian and an ethnic Yoruba.

A new democratic government would allow Nigeria to begin emerging from its economic turmoil as a modern developed nation, to regain Western respect and financial assistance, and to shake off its international image as a pariah state, U.S. officials and analysts said.

Monitors appeared likely to approve the election result despite concerns about electoral abuses.

“We did get reports of serious irregularities . . . but I was deeply impressed at what I saw, as hundreds and hundreds of Nigerians came out to vote and said that they wished the military to go back to the barracks,” said retired U.S. Gen. Colin L. Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a co-leader of a 40-member bipartisan observer team fielded by the Washington-based International Republican Institute.

In a preliminary report, the IRI said some of its monitors had seen ballot-stuffing--made obvious by final ballot counts that were higher than voter turnouts; a lack of ballot secrecy; and attempts to vote by youngsters who obviously were underage.

Local monitors said they had observed similar electoral discrepancies, and they identified some of the worst areas for abuses as the restive Niger Delta region, Kaduna state in the north and the city of Lagos, the country’s commercial center.

However, IRI observers said that, troubles aside, the vote should be viewed as an important step in the transition to civilian rule.

“The story here is the end of military rule in Africa’s most populous nation,” said U.S. Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Fullerton), an IRI delegation leader. “This transition is critical for the stability and democratization of the region.”

The winner of Saturday’s race is scheduled to be inaugurated May 29. Incumbent military ruler Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar has said he will step down at that time.

The new head of state will face enormous challenges in a country economically, socially and morally wrecked by years of government misrule and corruption. Revitalizing the country’s crumbling economy, boosting agricultural production that would make Nigeria self-sufficient, drastically revamping an inadequate infrastructure and transforming the nation’s security forces from tools of suppression to civilian protectors are among the tasks he will be expected to undertake.

Obasanjo, who was jailed from 1995 to last year on reportedly trumped-up charges of plotting a coup against the late military dictator Sani Abacha, was renowned during his previous tenure for his anti-corruption stance. He has promised to set up an agency that would hold government officials accountable for their misdeeds. Another pressing issue he will need to deal with is the simmering conflict in the country’s oil-producing Niger Delta region, where ethnic minorities are fighting for a greater say in governance and a better share of the oil profits derived from their land.

Many analysts have argued that restructuring Nigeria to give more authority back to state and local governments is critical.

“What is important to the lives of Nigerians is local government politics,” said Olisa Agbakoba, a respected human rights lawyer. “We now have a very central system. We have one man at the top.”

Local governments currently cannot take any initiative without bowing to the whims of the federal authorities, Agbakoba said.

Although a southerner, Obasanjo is reported to have won significant support from the Hausa- and Fulani-dominated north, and the overwhelmingly Ibo east. Observers said his performance could serve as a lesson to African nations struggling to dispel ethnic animosities.

“It shows that it is possible to unite a country in spite of ethnic diversity,” said prominent Kenyan opposition politician Raila Odinga, who came to Nigeria for Saturday’s vote as a guest of Obasanjo.

Odinga echoed the sentiment of many Obasanjo supporters: that the retired general could act as a bridge between the largely despised military and civilians.

“The country has a long history of coups and counter-coups,” Odinga said. “There is a need to assure the military that there can be stability without their intervention, and to create conditions that can keep them in the barracks.”

Powell noted that the Nigerian military has “its work cut out for itself” and will have to do a lot of soul-searching if it wishes to remodel itself as a people’s military. He warned that any backsliding in the democratic transition process would undoubtedly lead to a renewal of U.S. sanctions and a revival of international pressure.

On Friday, the U.S. temporarily waived sanctions against Nigeria that have been in effect for the past five years because of the country’s lack of cooperation in combating the flow of drugs. A White House official said Sunday that the waiver was issued to enable the U.S. to better assist Nigeria’s transition.

“It opens up a broader avenue for us to help the new government on a number of fronts, including support for World Bank loans and other forms of assistance that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible,” the official said.

In Lagos on Sunday, Royce observed: “We have the potential for a win for Nigeria and a win for America if economic reform can take place here, which will then increase trade between the U.S. and Africa.”

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Times staff writer Tyler Marshall in Washington contributed to this report.