Nigerian Ruling Party Wins Presidency

A guard walks past ballot boxes at an Election Commission storage facility in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Sunday, April 22, 2007. Top opposition candidate Vice President Atiku Abubakar called for the annulment of Nigeria's presidential vote Sunday, branding the previous day's election as the worst ever conducted in Africa's most populous nation. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam) (Schalk Van Zuydam - AP)

ABUJA, Nigeria -- A former chemistry professor hand-picked by President Olusegun Obasanjo won Nigeria's presidential election in a landslide Monday, a vote denounced as deeply flawed by international observers and the opposition.

Umaru Yar'Adua must now fight for credibility in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, where some 15,000 people have died since strict military rule ended in 1999.

Yar'Adua, a 56-year-old Muslim from the north of a country of 140 million people nearly equally split between northern Muslims and southern Christians, has spent most of his working life in academia, teaching chemistry at a university in his home state.

Though he favors crisp Muslim robes and caps and presided over a state where Islamic law is practiced, he is not seen as a hard-liner or especially strong supporter of Islamic law. Yar'Adua has vowed to follow the program of Obasanjo, a southern Christian, which includes privatization and opposition to spreading Islamic law outside the north or implementing stringent punishments, like amputations and death for adulterers, in the north.

Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the 1980s-era military leader who was the runner-up in Saturday's vote, called the outcome "the most blatantly rigged election results ever produced in Nigeria."

During Saturday's presidential and parliamentary votes and a week earlier during elections for state governors and legislatures, electoral officials could be seen inking ballots and shoving them into boxes. Thugs intimidated voters. The presidential ballots bore no serial numbers, making them easy to mishandle and impossible to track.

In the United States, which counts on Nigeria as a top supplier of oil, the White House expressed concern about reports of election irregularities. "Obviously, there is a lot of tension there and we hope that people can remain calm, and if they're going to protest, do so peacefully," said Dana Perino, the White House deputy press secretary.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "Based on the reports that we have seen, these were flawed elections and in some cases deeply flawed elections."

Yar'Adua rejected the rigging allegations as not "based on fact." But he sought reconciliation with the opposition candidates.

"I have extended a hand of friendship to all my colleagues who contested with me," he said in a nationally televised news conference.

Oil prices rose Monday, in part because of concern about Nigeria. Still, widespread and immediate violent reaction appeared unlikely: While Nigerians are frustrated with the state of their democracy, fear of security forces was likely to mute any response.

Electoral commission Chairman Maurice Iwu said Yar'Adua won about 24.6 million votes, more than three times the number garnered by Buhari. Some 61 million Nigerians registered to vote. Iwu gave no turnout figures.