Nigeria: the North, the south and the primaries elections

By on November 24, 2010

Former Vice-President from 1999 to 2007, Atiku Abubakar, who declared his intention to participate in the primaries of the People’s Democratic Party (ruling party),

has been designated by a group of Influential Muslim politicians of northern Nigeria to seek the nomination of the ruling party for the presidency in april 2011 against the current president of the country, the Christian Goodluck Jonathan. We are pleased to announce that we have found a consensual candidate among the four competing ones, former Finance Minister, Adamu Ciroma, said. Representing the mainly Muslim north, Abubakar will have to confront the Christian Goodluck Jonathan, from the south, who had come to power following the death, last May, of President Umaru Yar’Adua, a northern Muslim. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which dominates the political life of Nigeria, will choose its candidate in the primaries whose date has not yet been announced. In this most populous country of 150 million divided equally between Muslims and Christians, there is an unwritten rule that alternate power every eight years (two terms) between the Muslim north and mainly Christian south. Now Jonathan inherited the presidency upon the death of Umaru Yar’Adua and the power should remain in the north. The PDP said that the current president was free to run for the 2011 election but did not support him, while maintaining the rule of rotation.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.