MY TURN: A Nigerian woman registers for voting at a voting zone in Abuja (CAO KAI)

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan of Nigeria retained his seat at the helm of Africa's most populous nation with a convincing victory in the high-stake presidential elections held on April 16, 2011.

Jonathan had landslide victories in states like Abia, Rivers, Bayelsa, Edo, Imo, and Akwa Ibom, with over 95 percent of all the voters, giving him a fresh four-year term to manage the economic giant of West Africa. In Bayelsa, his home state, he had an almost clean sweep with 99.63 percent of the votes and almost 60 percent votes overall according to the electoral commission.

After the relative calm of the election process, violence broke out in the north of the country. Jonathan appealed for calm, saying he had received word of the sporadic unrest with great sadness. "I appeal to those involved to stop this unnecessary and avoidable conduct, more so at this point in time when a lot of sacrifice has been made by all the citizens of this great country in ensuring the conduct of free and fair elections."

The main opposition has rejected the results.

Jonathan succeeded the late President Musa Umaru Yar'Adua in May 2010, following the latter's death, completing Yar'Adua's term (he was the vice president) and thereafter, with the backing of the ruling People's Democratic Party, sought the voters' endorsement.

Big winner

The results posted on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) website "live" as the national tallying went on showed that Jonathan garnered 21.5 million voters and managed to win 25 percent in nearly all the states except Bauchi, Kano and Borno. These three were in strongholds of Jonathan's closest challenger Muhammadu Buhari's Congress for Progressive Change, and Buhari reigned supreme. At the last count, Buhari had 11.4 million votes.

Jonathan, who was the incumbent, won in 22 of the 35 states in Nigeria, and managed to raise 25 percent in five more states. According to the country's Constitution, Jonathan was technically the winner the moment he clinched a quarter of the votes in more than 24 states.

Nigeria's polls were closely watched because of the country's importance to the rest of Africa: It is the current chair of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States; it was instrumental in trying to resolve the election crisis in Cote d'Ivoire; plus, Nigeria is strongly pushing for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council to represent Africa.

The success of the elections effectively cements Nigeria's position as West Africa's beacon of democracy, and Africa's mediator in chief.

Having been vindicated with the exit of Cote d'Ivoire's strongman Laurent Gbagbo in favor of Alassane Outtara who won the polls, Nigeria has its eyes set on Libya in a bid to end the fighting.

The Foreign Minister Odein Ajumogobia was quoted by the News Agency of Nigeria saying that his country would mediate to end Libya's crisis.

Smooth elections

The INEC can bask in the glory of having conducted the first relatively transparent polls in Nigeria's history, and the voters too can claim a stake in the success of the polls following the non-violent process in a country with over 150 million people, 74 million being registered voters.

Being Africa's most populous nation and possibly the largest democracy, Nigeria had to ensure that the elections side-step the curse of rigging, ballot-snatching and violence that have dogged its past three elections, since the 1999 end of military rule.

The INEC was aware of the high-stakes and put measures in place to ensure the elections go right. INEC's guidelines to the voters were specific. Voters had to bring their voter's cards. "No voting card, don't come to the polling unit."

"Cellphones are welcome at the polls. Use them to send text messages to report any fraud, violence or election tampering," INEC said on its website, where it listed hotlines through which voters could report any malfeasance.

The electoral body had also distributed transparent ballot boxes and allowed people to gather and watch the exercise being conducted, in a system dubbed "modified open ballot procedure." Results were also pasted after announcements so that every voter confirms that the winner who was announced is actually the winner on the roll, INEC Chairman Professor Attahiru Jega told journalists at a meeting with observers.

"Every polling unit, once results are declared, [the returning officer] should ensure that they are pasted for the people to see. This will bring additional credibility to the process. Besides, people should ensure that this is complied with, because it is a necessary provision," the INEC boss was quoted in Nigeria's The Guardian, on the eve of the presidential polls.

The National Assembly elections held a week earlier had provided crucial lessons to the INEC, such that the boss oozed confidence that the election material had already been dispatched to the 120,000 polling stations in 35 states across the country, he said.

The high-stake political contest saw 18 candidates battle it out for the presidency in a country that turned 50 just last year.

Nigerian scholar Gana Shettima was optimistic that the INEC will pull through with a free and fair presidential poll.

"Nobody was ever expecting it to be perfect and as it turned out, it was marred by isolated cases of irregularities and violence; but the larger picture that came out of the elections was one of success rather than failure," he noted in his column in the Daily Trust on the eve of the elections, referring to the parliamentary elections held a week earlier.

Time to deliver

Though the country exports an estimated 2.3 million barrels of oil per day, the poverty levels are still chocking, with seven out of every 10 Nigerians surviving on just a dollar a day. The infrastructure is poor and the fighting in the Delta region over oil and in the region of Jos over religious differences makes the agenda clear for whoever will emerge top in the polls.

Shettima's prediction about Jonathan's win came true.

"The wings of his party, the PDP, the kingfisher, no doubt appear to have been clipped by the new climate of free and fair elections. Nonetheless, it has the spread and is beaten but not down," Shettima wrote in his commentary. "What is more, the opposition, as always, appears to be in disarray. If the parliamentary elections are anything to go by, then he [Jonathan] is set to emerge as the next president. If luck is on his side, he will not only win the elections but will be the first incumbent president to get elected in a free, fair and credible election."

Jonathan will have to ensure the discrimination based on tribalism, religion and region ends in the vast republic. He will have to root out the endemic corruption in Nigeria's system. He will have to come up with policies to ensure uninterrupted power supply, to spur industrialization and create jobs. He will have to make Nigerians overcome the oil-curse by having a way to sort out the revenue sharing at the Niger Delta.

That plateful, plus making Nigeria the economic powerhouse and a beacon of stability in West Africa are part of his target as he resumes tenancy at the Aso Rock Presidential Palace.

And now Jonathan has to deliver.

(Reporting from Kenya)