2011 Nigeria National Elections
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Presidential candidates were limited to one billion naira ($6.7 million) while gubernatorial candidates
could spend up to 200 million naira ($1.4 million). Those seeking a position in the national assembly
were capped at 40 million naira ($270,000) while state assembly aspirants could only spend 10
million naira ($62,000). Other amendments extended the period of time allowed for voter
registration and shortened the deadlines for action on petitions to annul election results. In
response to repeated calls for more internal party democracy, the 2010 Electoral Act detailed
requirements for primaries and banned the practice of "cross-carpeting," a common practice where a
candidate would switch parties after being elected into office on another party's ticket.
While the 2010 Electoral Act included many reforms, other key proposals recommended in the
Uwais Report were noticeably absent from the final draft. The most controversial omission was
INEC's complete independence from the executive. Under pressure from the executive branch, and
from many within the national assembly, the Senate did not approve this recommendation made by
the Uwais committee, and therefore kept INEC's dependence on the executive branch. The
president continues to appoint the INEC chair, which leaves INEC's credibility subject to the
integrity of the sitting president. In addition to failing to promote a more transparent, independent
INEC, lawmakers also failed to implement other Electoral Reform Committee proposals such as the
establishment of an electoral offences commission and a political parties commission. The former
would have had widespread authority to prevent, investigate and prosecute electoral crimes while the
latter would accredit political party observers and oversee party registration.
Transfer of Power from President Yar'Adua to Goodluck Jonathan
In an attempt to moderate Nigerians' discontent and anger over the overt and widespread electoral
fraud of 2007, President Yar'Adua undertook other large-scale initiatives in addition to electoral
reform. Early in his term, Yar'Adua received positive marks for initiating financial reform and
offering amnesty to Niger Delta rebels, a move that slowed the regularly occurring bombings and
insurgent attacks in that region and reduced interruptions of the area's oil production. After these
initial successes, however, Yar'Adua's administration failed to address many of Nigeria's core
problems: poor infrastructure, inability to expand the energy sector and lack of economic reform.
Corruption and impunity, moreover, continued to be pervasive throughout the government. The
failures and unwillingness to comprehensively take on Nigeria's problems suggested that Yar'Adua's
administration was not fully capable of implementing the full range of necessary reforms, which
generated much criticism about the slow pace of progress.
In November 2009, President Yar'Adua fell seriously ill. He departed the country for treatment in
Saudi Arabia, leaving behind a power vacuum that sparked fears Nigeria would revert back into a
military dictatorship. Although aides, loyal party members and those closest to him proclaimed that
the president's health would return, President Yar'Adua died on May 5, 2010. Vice President
Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as president one day later. Jonathan—a Christian from the
southern state of Bayelsa—entered office under much pressure. Not only did he inherit the myriad
of problems that Yar'Adua failed to address while in office, but he also garnered suspicion from
many within his own party, who feared that he would run for reelection in 2011 and thereby violate
the PDP principle of "zoning." Zoning is an unwritten, informal power-sharing agreement within
the PDP that seeks to rotate senior offices among Nigeria's six geopolitical zones—most notably by
alternating the presidency between a candidate from the Muslim north and Christian south. Under
the zoning agreement, Yar'Adua, a northerner, should have retained the presidency until 2015, since
