The Supreme Court upheld Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua’s 2007 election win Friday, dealing a blow to political opponents who sought to unseat him.
But questions linger over the leader’s health and so far lethargic governance of Africa’s most populous nation.
The seven-justice court ruled that the two runners-up in the vote had failed to show evidence that graft was widespread enough to force an annulment. But the judges acknowledged flaws in the election, and chided politicians on their combative conduct in the vote and during legal challenges since.
“We’re not saying that all went well in the conduct of the election,” said one justice, Niki Tobi, laying the blame on the country’s political elite. “The way politics is played frightens me. It’s a fight to the finish.”
The ruling by the Supreme Court hands Yar’Adua an immediate political victory and strengthens his position by erasing the possibility that he could be replaced in a rerun of the April 21, 2007, election.
The vote was meant to draw a line under military rule by transferring power successfully for the first time between elected leaders.
But thugs openly purchased votes, stole or stuffed ballot boxes, and intimidated voters on Election Day and about 200 people died in violence during the run up to the vote. Nearly a dozen governorship elections held a week before the presidential ballot have been overturned and several new races run.
A statement released Friday said that Yar’Adua commended his opponents for pursuing their challenge through the legal system.
“He, however, remains keenly conscious of the imperfections of Nigeria’s current electoral system and reaffirms his commitment to working with all stakeholders for comprehensive electoral reforms to quicken the nation’s march towards democratic consolidation,” it said.
A lower court had ruled earlier this year that former strongman Muhammadu Buhari and ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar — who placed second and third in the election — had failed to prove that the fraud was so pervasive that the official results should be discarded.
The Supreme Court upheld that decision Friday and effectively ended any legal route for the opposition to pursue their grievances — a decision accepted by all parties in the suit.
“We are all winners. Lessons have been learned and we hope that the country will benefit,” Ricky Tarfa, a lawyer for Abubakar, told the justices wearing gray wigs and black robes.
But even as Yar’Adua’s political woes are lessened, he is still challenged by a long-standing kidney ailment. Several times over the past two years he has left the country for lengthy overseas treatments, prompting unfounded rumors of his death or resignation.
His detractors say his health, alongside the persistent questions of illegitimacy and his cautious personal style, have amounted to an ineffective administration.
Yar’Adua, who hails from an aristocratic family in Nigeria’s Muslim northern heartland, has been criticized for failing to deliver on promises made in his inauguration speech after the vote.
He said then that he would reinvigorate the country’s moribund power-generation system and solve a long-simmering crisis in the southern oil region, where militants and criminals attack oil pipelines and kidnap foreign workers. But little movement has been evident on either front.
Officials working in Nigeria’s crucial oil industry, which is Africa’s largest, say they have difficulty getting their government partners to make decisions on long-term projects, citing the possibility of new leadership in the country.
But Yar’Adua’s many supporters say he’s ending the long-held practice of Nigerian leaders who try and micromanage a vast nation of 140 million people hailing from 250 ethnic groups, wasting money or simply trying to churn government accounts to the benefit of their cronies.
They point to Yar’Adua’s decision to publicly declare his finances, marking the first-ever such declaration of a top official in Nigeria, as a sign of true leadership in the fight against the graft that has long hobbled Nigeria.