Ruling candidate wins Nigerian election
EU monitors, US slam polls
Afp, Abuja
Ruling party candidate Umaru Yar'Adua won Nigeria's presidential election yesterday, even as foreign observers slammed the credibility of the disputed poll that claimed at least 200 lives. The national election commission declared Yar'Adua the winner with 24.6 million votes, far ahead of his two main opposition rivals. Just minutes after the announcement, the United States voiced deep concern at the violence and voting irregularities that accompanied the state elections on April 14 and the presidential and parliamentary ballot on Saturday. "We are deeply troubled by what we saw," US national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. Yar'Adua, 55 and the governor of one Nigeria's northern states, was backed by President Olusegun Obasanjo and was the pre-poll favourite. He has a track record of financial prudence, public service and accountability and is among the few governors recently absolved of corruption by the country's anti-graft agency. On being elected governor of Katsina in 1999, Yar'Adua immediately made public his assets.
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