PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has won last Saturday’s presidential election, defeating his closest rivals, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

But the CPC in a statement signed by its national chairman, Prince Tony Momoh, claimed the election was characterised by malpractices.

From the results so far released, Jonathan polled a total of 22,350,242 votes to beat Buhari, who had 11,914,953 to a distant second, while Ribadu of ACN polled 2,049,357.

Jonathan also scored the highest number of votes in 24 states and polled over 25 per cent of the vote in over 26 states, including the Federal Capital Territory. With this, he has satisfied the constitutional provision of having the majority of the votes cast, as well as having 25 per cent of the votes in a two-thirds (24) of the nation’s 36 states. His highest votes haul came from Rivers State, where he got 1,817,762 votes. He also polled 1,368,851 in Delta State.

The president led in all the states in the South-South and South-East geopolitical zones. He also led in five of the six states in the South-West, coming second only in Osun State, where Ribadu had the highest number of votes. Other states where Jonathan came first include Kwara, Kogi, Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa in the North-Central zone and Adamawa.

Buhari led in Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara states.

His highest score came from Kano State, the home state of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) presidential candidate, where he polled 1,624,543 votes.

Ribadu led in Osun State, while Shekarau did not lead in any state.

Meanwhile, Saturday’s election of Jonathan as Nigeria’s fourth democratically elected president has further reinforced the pre-eminence of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in Nigeria’s politics, as well as confirming his visionary outlook, after predicting that an Ijaw man would, one day, emerge as Nigeria’s president.

Chief Awolowo was quoted as having told his supporters in Bonny, in present-day Rivers State, during his presidential campaign in 1983, that an ethnic minority president would soon emerge in the country.

While noting that the people of the present-day South-South region of the country had always aligned politically with the core North political structure during presidential elections, Chief Awolowo was said to have told the gathering that they stood to benefit a lot by aligning with him.

He had predicted that “an Ijaw man will be president of Nigeria before long.” He was also said to have added that a Berom man would one day emerge vice-president.

The prophecy of the sage was said to have rattled the military regime of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, which sacked the Second Republic on December 31, 1983, on allegations of widespread corruption.

The regime placed the sage under house arrest at his Apapa residence in Lagos. It also confiscated the travel passport of the sage for two years.

As the celebrations continue among supporters of the president across the country, it has become clear that Jonathan was the man whose future the sage was predicting.

Jonathan’s election also marks a watershed in the nation’s history, as it is the first time an ethnic minority president would be occupying the nation’s most exalted seat through the ballot.

Previously, the farthest the ethnic minority groups in the country got was the vice-presidency.

Former Chief of General Staff, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, became vice-president under the Ibrahim Babangida military regime after the removal of Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, a South-Easterner (an Igbo) from office in 1986.

The emergence of Dr Jonathan as the presidential running mate of the late Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007, however, rekindled the hope of the ethnic minorities in the country that they could clinch the highest office in the land.

In particular, his emergence seemed to have placated the Niger Delta, which was in the vanguard of militancy movement against the Federal Government, because of the neglect and underdeveloipment of the region by subsequent regimes.

Significantly, Dr Jonathan had a clean sweep in the Middle Belt of the country, a region populated by Northern ethnic minority groups.

He also had a clean sweep of states in the South-South region of the country, peopled by ethnic minority groups, including the Ijaw, Ibibio, Itsekiri, Bini, Urhobo, among others.

Meanwhile, the CPC has reacted to the election results, saying the election was characterised by malpractices.

In a statement signed by its national chairman, Prince Momoh, posted on Huhuonline blog on Sunday, the party, however, commended the voters for their commitment to the growth of democracy in the country.

According to the statement, “My party, the Congress for Progressive Change, would like to praise Nigerians who have shown more enthusiasm to pick the leaders of their choice than many involved in moderating the elections have exhibited.”

He said last week, there were obvious lapses which the party drew attention to in the elections of the National Assembly, adding that a lot of anomalies were recorded between the voting centres and the collating stations.

He said it was the view of the party that elections must be won at polling centres, through the people’s vote.

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