Nigeria's ruling party presidential candidate, Umaru Yar'Adua, was yesterday declared the winner of the weekend's fraud-tainted election that the European Union described as "not credible" and Washington called "deeply troubling".
The outgoing president, Olusegun Obasanjo, acknowledged fraud and other electoral "lapses" but said the result reflected opinion polls. In a national television address he added that if Nigerians did not like the victory of his handpicked successor they would have an opportunity to vote again in four years.
Final results gave 24.6m votes to Mr Yar'Adua, the Muslim governor of northern Katsina state. His nearest rival, the former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, received 6.6m votes and the outgoing vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, won 2.6m.
Opposition leaders called for a rerun of the election after international and Nigerian monitors said there had been blatant ballot box stuffing, a shortage of voting papers in opposition areas and violence. They said they would call their supporters on to the streets and launch a legal challenge that could delay Mr Yar'Adua's swearing in at the end of next month.
The ruling People's Democratic party (PDP) is also well ahead in elections for the Nigerian parliament's upper house and appears likely to win a clear majority in the lower house of representatives.
Mr Yar'Adua, 56, said he felt "humbled" by his victory and dismissed claims he had won through fraud. He attributed his win to hard work by his party, and God.
But the credibility of the ballot was further questioned as it emerged that Mr Yar'Adua won key states on the back of an exceptionally large turnout that election monitors say they did not witness.
The head of the EU's observer mission, Max van den Berg, said in a statement that he could not endorse the vote as legitimate. "These elections have not lived up to the hopes and expectations of the Nigerian people and the process cannot be considered to have been credible," he said.
The US state department said the elections were flawed, "and in some cases deeply flawed", but said it was not calling for a re-run.
Appearing subdued, Mr Obasanjo acknowledged shortcomings. "Our elections could not have been said to have been perfect," he said.
"Cases of electoral fraud were reported from parts of the country." But he said they had not had a significant impact on the outcome and he advised those who felt aggrieved to use the constitutional legal process to challenge the outcome. He also accused some opposition leaders of fanning violence and "outright subversive activity".
The head of the national election commission, Maurice Iwu, said the ballot had "not gone without difficulties" and that it was "far from perfect" but blamed logistical difficulties. He said that overall the elections were "free and fair and credible".
But much of the Nigerian press has strongly criticised the election calling it fraudulent and a "rape of democracy".
A respected political weekly, Tell magazine, quoted an observation attributed to Joseph Stalin: "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything".
Mr Yar'Adua was always going to face a struggle to assert himself as independent of Mr Obasanjo, who dominated the ruling party's campaign and will remain PDP leader even after stepping down as president. But his task has been made all the more difficult by the widespread questioning of the legitimacy of his election.
New opposition MPs and state governors have also been critical of the poll. The integrity of the result was further questioned once voting patterns became clear. In Rivers state, Mr Yar'Adua won 1.8m votes against a combined total of just 109,000 for the two main opposition candidates. The electoral commission said there was an 81% turnout. In nearby Delta state, Mr Yar'Adua received 1.2m votes to 42,000 for the opposition.
Election monitors said they were sceptical of both results as they had witnessed ballot boxes being stuffed with votes for the PDP. They had also spoken to young men paid to mark thousands of ballots for the PDP.