Election outcome reflects religious manoeuvres

The Nigerian Presidential election late last month was won by Bola Tinabu.

He was the ruling party candidate, a Muslim with a Muslim vice-president, who polled 8,794,726 votes; Atiku Abubakar secured 6,984,520 votes. Peter Obi, a Christian standing on an anti-corruption platform, offered the first major challenge to the two parties who have ruled Nigeria since the end of military rule in 1999: he received 6,101,533 votes.

A well-informed source reports that it had long been clear that the election was going to be about proving the predominance of either Islam or Christianity rather than national goals, development, and building an equitable and just society. For many years Christians have complained about the ‘Islamisation of Nigeria’ and the drive by the northern political class to align itself with the international Islamic Arabic community rather than build a secular state.