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March 1, 1999
Web posted at: 6:54 a.m. EST (1154 GMT)

ABUJA, Nigeria (CNN) -- Retired Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo has been elected as Nigeria's new president, election officials said Monday.

The election officials confirmed Obasanjo's victory shortly before final results of Saturday's poll were due to be published.

Obasanjo is now set to become Nigeria's first civilian leader after 15 years of military rule.

Allegations of vote-rigging cast a shadow on the final step in the West African nation's long-awaited return to civilian rule, and aides to former Finance Minister Olu Falae, Obasanjo's opponent, said Falae would contest the results.

By Sunday evening, Obasanjo had captured 62 percent of the vote with 31 of Nigeria's 36 states and the federal capital reporting. With 25.8 million votes counted, Obasanjo had 15.8 million, to Falae's 9.9 million.

But aides to Falae lashed out at the voting.

"The vote was completely rigged," Sunday Durodola, the party secretary for Falae's Alliance for Democracy, said in a telephone interview from Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital. "We have not had free and fair elections, and Falae will contest this."

"We cannot be bound by the results released thus far," said Ayo Opadokun, Falae's campaign director, said at a news conference at the Independent National Electoral Commission, before angrily storming out.

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A refusal to recognize the outcome by one of the two presidential candidates would taint the vote, but election officials said they would continue to count the ballots.

Nigeria has never held a presidential election in which the loser accepted defeat. In both previous presidential elections, in 1979 and 1993, the apparent result was contested by at least one of the candidates.

International observers reported ballot box-stuffing and other serious voting irregularities, but it was not clear how much the problem affected the results.

"Our delegation members and others witnessed serious irregularities and overt electoral fraud in a number of states," said former President Jimmy Carter, who led a 60-person delegation of election observers.

Carter, added, though, that "a saving factor was that there was no nationwide pattern to favor any one party."

Those monitors were to release a detailed report on the elections later today.

Falae, who had said Saturday he would accept the results if the vote was fair, went to the capital, Abuja, today to meet with election officials, Durodola said.

To officially challenge the election, Falae's party would have to file suit with Nigeria's Court of Appeal, a process that could take months.

Obasanjo's People's Democratic Party already earned a majority of seats in the National Assembly after elections only days before the presidential tally.

The controversy did not immediately spark public protests. No violence was reported on the streets of Lagos, often a hotbed of strife in times of political dissent.

In Obasanjo's southwestern hometown of Abeokuta, the retired general was mobbed by several dozen joyous supporters outside his house. Women hugged him, sang songs and held up evening newspapers celebrating his apparent victory.

While both Obasanjo and Falae are Yorubas, the dominant people in Nigeria's southwest, Obasanjo's military past has alienated him from many southerners.

Obasanjo voluntarily handed over power to civilian rule in 1979. But a military junta seized back power in 1983 and various military rulers have held power since, canceling the results of the 1993 vote.

Under the juntas, corruption and mismanagement have cost the country billions of dollars of its massive oil wealth, leaving much of its infrastructure crumbling.

The democratic transition began in June, when the five-year dictatorship of Gen. Sani Abacha ended with his sudden death. Abacha was followed by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who has repeatedly vowed to hand over power to a civilian government.

Abubakar is to turn over power to the new civilian president on May 29.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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