INEC Declares Goodluck Jonathan As President!

By Osagie Alonge

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has formally declared Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as the President of The Federal Republic of Nigeria for the next four years after a keenly contested presidential election on Saturday, April 16, 2011.

INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega announced the result after three long days of collation and counting. The whole process was aired live on national TV where Nigerians patiently waited to find who would take up the reins of government for the next four years.

The result shows incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan flying the flag of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) carry majority of votes (22,495,187), making that about 58.89 percent of votes. He was followed by his main rival Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress of Progressive Change (CPC) (12,214,853) making 31.98 percent of votes. In third place was the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) flag bearer Nuhu Ribadu (2,079,151) making 5.41 percent of votes.

A total of 39,469,484 votes were cast throughout the country. Considering the country has a population of about 143 million people, pundits say many did not turn out to vote.

In other news, there has been unrest in the Northern part of the county as results were trickling in yesterday. Many took to the streets to show their disapproval of the election results claiming that it was not credible enough. Lives and property has been lost, pictures from social network sites have shown gory scenes of riots and disturbances.

On Tuesday, April 26, 2011, the gubernatorial elections will take place in all parts of the country to elect governors who will also run for four years.