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Race for presidency heats up
19/04/2007 15:35 - (SA)
Abuja - A former military dictator, the current vice president and a state governor backed by the departing president have emerged as the top three candidates in Nigeria's troubled presidential elections scheduled for Saturday.
In a field of 25, General Muhammadu Buhari and vice-president Atiku Abubakar both lead opposition parties, while Umaru Yar'Adua is the favourite of outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is prevented from running again after two terms by constitutional term limits. All three are Muslims from the north, in keeping with an informal arrangement rotating power between southern Christians and northern Muslims.
Nigeria's population of 140 million is roughly evenly split between northern Muslims and southern Christians and animists.
Yar'Adua, the candidate of Obasanjo's People's Democratic Party, is favoured to win, his party's power underlined by its showing in April 14 state elections in which its candidate won more than 21 of 36 governorships.
The 65-year-old Yar'Adua is a little-known governor from northern Katsina state, where camels and herds of cattle roam the countryside and criminals and adulterers are sentenced to stoning or whipping under Islamic law.
His supporters say the former chemistry professor would bring a measured, analytical style to power as Nigeria's first college educated leader.
Political inexperience
He has overseen the construction of new state government offices, a new university and some roads in his state capital. But with little industry and no mineral resources, Katsina has remained poor.
Yar'Adua hails from a notable northern political family. His older brother was the deputy when Obasanjo was a military ruler in the 1970s. Yet Umaru Yar'Adua only entered national politics late last year, when Obasanjo shoved aside more prominent contenders at a party nomination conference to ensure Yar'Adua's selection.
Critics contend he's a puppet, selected to prevent investigations into the misuse of tens of billions of dollars of government oil revenues. President Obasanjo will remain a key figure in the PDP, with control of party funds and appointments. But Yar'Adua promises he will be his own man if elected.
"I am amazed and amused when people say these things. There is no way you can govern a state or a federation or any nation by proxy - it just doesn't work," Yar'Adua told reporters recently.
Detractors contend his reclusiveness and political inexperience make him unsuited to lead a fractious nation of some 250 ethnic groups or control a political party notorious for corruption and infighting.
Questions hang over his health after an air ambulance whisked him off to Germany mid-campaign, seeking unspecified treatment.
No-nonsense military rule
The 56-year-old Yar'Adua, who had previously disclosed a kidney ailment but never explained why he went to Germany, now insists he is as fit as ever.
Up against the little known and softly spoken Yar'Adua is retired General Buhari.
In 1983, having attended military academies in America, India and Britain, Buhari was nominated to be the nation's ruler by a group of officers who launched a coup.
His no-nonsense military rule established strong anti-corruption credentials and made him a household name.
"Integrity" and "security" are his buzzwords, befitting a man pushed from power after eighteen months for investigating corrupt deals by his own military colleagues.
- AP
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