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Nigeria's Obasanjo picks successor, oil majors carry on pumping
By Jacques Lhuillery
AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 04 25 07Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo, convinced he can get away with anything as president of the world's sixth oil producer, handpicked the man chosen to succeed him in elections even he admitted were flawed by violence and fraud.
Last year, he persuaded ruling party heavyweights to step aside one by one to clear the way for Umaru Yar'Adua, the obscure governor of a northern state, to be chosen as the ruling party's consensus candidate.
Obasanjo then did his best to weaken the opposition to help his protege -- a total 50 parties signed up for Nigeria's violence-marred presidential, parliamentary and state polls April 14 and 21.
"After all, in another four years, there will be an opportunity for a fresh contest which I hope will take care of ballot paper and ballot box malpractices," said Obasanjo, calling an end to the show in inflappable style, even as criticism of the flawed poll rained in from across the world.
A results sheet handed AFP by the electoral commission showed a breakdown of results per candidate, but the column of totals for the country's 36 states was blank.
But a Western diplomat said the scandal at home and abroad over vote-rigging would die with a whimper.
"People will forget, and it'll soon be business as usual," he said.
In office since 1999, Obasanjo tried in 2006 to have the constitution revised to enable him to stay on for a third four-year term.
Parliament quashed the move.With that option ruled out, Obasanjo moved to maintain the hold of his ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) across Africa's most populous nation by backing his protege, Yar'Adua, for the post of president and working to keep its parliamentary majority as well as winning a maximum number of governorships in the federation's 36 states.
Analysts as well as opponents also say Obasanjo used both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the electoral commission INEC to prevent his adversaries from running in the polls.
Sebastian Spio-Garbrah of New York-based Eurasia group told AFP that the EFCC had pursued Obasanjo's enemies with more zeal than his cronies. EFCC boss Nuhu Ribadu has repeatedly dismissed the claim.
But both the EFCC and INEC were instrumental in almost preventing the president's onetime ally-turned-rival, Vice President Atiku Abubakar, from running for head of state on the grounds he faced allegations of corruption.
Abubakar was disqualified from running by INEC but the Supreme Court ruled days before the election that he could stand. His last-minute bid won him a third place behing Yar'Adua.
The international community had harsh words for elections that left 200 dead, but stopped short of calling for a re-run.
The PDP now is set to govern Nigeria for the next four years after staging what it billed as the first peaceful handover from civilian to civilian since independence in 1960.
But seen from abroad, Nigeria equals oil -- currently accounting for 10 percent of US oil imports and rising all the time.
" Everyone wondered how these elections would go," the Africa boss of an oil major told AFP. "They finally took place and it's peaceful. This is good news for Nigeria and good news for the oil industry. The important thing is stability."
On the oil market, prices struck three-week highs on Tuesday due to concerns about Nigerian supplies.
" I think that at any time you could start to see an upsurge in violence and that could put plans to restart oil on hold, potentially even hit the oil which is currently being produced," said Global Insight analyst Simon Wardell.
" It lowers risk if you have people accepting the results and trying to work together, but I'm not sure it's in the immediate future," Wardell added.
AFP 25 0122 GMT 04 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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