By James Rupert
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 2, 1999; Page A14

LAGOS, Nigeria, March 1—Nigeria's election commission declared today that former military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo won Saturday's presidential election, but Obasanjo's opponent called for protests against what he said was a fraudulent result.

In Abuja, the capital, Nigeria's election commission chairman, retired Supreme Court judge Ephraim Akpata, declared Obasanjo elected with nearly 19 million votes, or 63 percent of all ballots cast. His opponent, Olu Falae, received 11 million votes, or 37 percent. Under rules laid down by Nigeria's military government, Obasanjo will be sworn in on May 29 as the first civilian president in more than 15 years.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who is in Nigeria as part of an observer delegation from the Carter Center and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, said irregularities had clouded the outcome of the voting, and Falae's supporters seized on the statement as evidence for their case.

Falae, a former finance minister, asked his voters "to show their dissatisfaction by protesting" with "political action, yes, protest, yes, but not violence." Vote fraud was "so monumental as to make nonsense of the entire process," he told the Associated Press.

Obasanjo, who led a military government for four years before handing power to civilians in 1979, said voting irregularities had been committed by "ignorant" people. But he called on his opponents to accept the result and "join hands with all of us, because at this point in time that is what we need."

In a letter to the election commission, Carter noted that, in some states, many more votes were recorded than there were voters observed at the polls. "Regrettably, therefore, it is not possible for us to make an accurate judgment about the outcome of the presidential election," he said.

The election's credibility carries high political stakes. After military rule that has left Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with more than 100 million people, in a shambles, an election perceived as fair would ease the return to civilian rule. That, say democracy advocates, would be the single greatest advance for democracy on this continent since the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994.

With only 13 weeks before the military is due to hand power to the winner of Saturday's vote, "God knows, no one wants to see this fail," a foreign diplomat said.

Blatant fraud was evident Saturday, as journalists, diplomats and election monitors reported that local officials stuffed ballot boxes on behalf of one candidate or the other. While no monitoring organization echoed Falae's contention that Obasanjo's victory was clearly fraudulent, they differed on its certainty.

The European Union's observer mission expressed "serious concern" over the fraud but said, "We judge that the result of the election . . . reflects the wishes of the Nigerian people." The Transition Monitoring Group, a coalition of Nigerian pro-democracy organizations that fielded 10,000 election observers, said fraud had been committed by both sides and "it is difficult to say the extent to which the efforts of [the] two parties canceled each other."

The Clinton administration withheld judgment on the credibility of Obasanjo's victory. In Washington, National Security Council spokesman David Leavy said "any allegations of vote irregularities should be looked into by the appropriate authorities." He underscored the importance of Nigeria's shift to civilian rule, saying that "a Nigeria that is democratic and protects human and civilian rights can be an anchor for the new Africa."