Deadly Riots Hit Nigeria as Jonathan Wins Presidential Vote
Deadly riots erupted across Nigeria's north on Monday as results from presidential elections showed incumbent Goodluck Jonathan had won the contest that reflected deep regional tensions.
Results from all of Nigeria's states announced by the electoral commission showed Jonathan had handily beaten his northern rival, ex-military ruler Muhammadu Buhari. The electoral commission was yet to officially declare him the victor.
Returns from all 36 states and the capital showed Jonathan with more than 22 million votes compared to some 12 million for Buhari.
The rioting began after allegations of rigging in Saturday's vote as results showed sharp divisions between the mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south of Africa's most populous nation.
Jonathan condemned the violence in a statement.
"I have received with great sadness the news of sporadic unrest in some parts of the country which are not unconnected with last Saturday’s elections," he said, appealing to those involved "to stop this unnecessary and avoidable conduct.”
Residents reported that a home belonging to Vice President Namadi Sambo was among those set alight in the northern city of Zaria and a mob sought to burn a Christian woman alive in another area.
Churches were also burnt and a prison was raided, with a number of inmates escaping, residents said. Mobs roamed in a number of states, armed with sticks and burning bonfires in the streets.
An unspecified number of people were killed in Kano when homes and shops were attacked, in Gombe when a home was set ablaze and in Kaduna, where mobs had stopped people on the highway.
A spokesman for the national emergency management agency, Yushau Shuaib, confirmed deaths occurred in those incidents, but declined to provide figures out of fears of reprisals.
Protesters earlier fought running battles with soldiers in Kano, Nigeria's main northern city. A 24-hour curfew was imposed on the state of Kaduna, where Zaria is located, and more limited restrictions were in effect in other areas.
Police said the rioting had been instigated by those unhappy with the results, saying it was "neither ethnic nor religious." The military made similar comments and warned it was ready to act.
"The Nigerian Armed Forces ... will not sit down and watch unpatriotic people take laws into their hands," defense spokesman Colonel Mohammed Yerima said.
A Red Cross official who did not want to be named said 14 states in the north had been affected, but the situation was beginning to calm as the evening approached.
He said in Kaduna alone more than 30 wounded had been evacuated to hospitals.
The military dispersed youths in an area near the capital Abuja after they had barricaded a highway.
Observers have hailed the conduct of the poll, describing it as a major change from years of massive rigging, intimidation and ballot-box snatching in the continent's largest oil producer.
But concerns have also been raised over extraordinarily high results for Jonathan in parts of his native south, including 99.63 percent in his home state of Bayelsa. Even in states where Jonathan lost, some alleged his total was still too high.
Buhari's party has filed a complaint with the electoral commission challenging the results. They also condemned the violence.
In Kano on Monday morning, protesters stopped cars and demanded that passengers express support for Buhari.
A mob used wooden planks to beat two people who appeared to be Christians based on their dress, an Agence France Presse correspondent said. Bonfires were burned in the streets while schools and shops closed, with smoke rising above the city.
Protests also spread to the tense central Nigerian city of Jos, hit by years of deadly clashes between Christian and Muslim ethnic groups,
In the town of Potiskum in Yobe state, a resident reported that a mob sought to pin down a Christian woman and burn her with a tire, but residents put the fire out and took her to hospital.
The challenge filed by the opposition was to be looked at, but it would not postpone the declaration of the winner, said electoral commission spokesman Kayode Idowu.
Millions of voters turned out for Saturday's election as the country bid to put years of rigging and badly flawed ballots behind it and hold the cleanest polls for head of state in nearly two decades.
Many analysts had feared the deepening of regional divisions that showed up in the results in a country as fractious as Nigeria, roughly split between Christians and Muslims and with some 250 ethnic groups.
Jonathan, 53 and a southern Christian, is the first president from the main oil-producing Niger Delta region.
Buhari, a 69-year-old Muslim, has built a reputation as a fighter of corruption, but his "war against indiscipline" during his regime in the 1980s was also accused of outrageous rights abuses.
Source: Agence France Presse
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