The 2011 presidential election was the first run by INEC under Professor Attahiru Jega, and it was widely judged a real improvement on the deeply flawed polls of 2007. President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won comfortably. But the result set off riots across northern Nigeria in which more than 800 people were killed, making 2011 both a step forward for election administration and one of the deadliest elections in the country’s history.

How Jonathan came to run

Jonathan had become president in May 2010 after the death of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. His decision to run in 2011 split the PDP, because an informal understanding within the party was that a northerner should complete Yar’Adua’s two terms. Jonathan defeated former vice-president Atiku Abubakar in the PDP primary in January 2011.

The opposition was fragmented. Muhammadu Buhari had left the ANPP and formed the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). Nuhu Ribadu, former chairman of the EFCC, ran for the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Ibrahim Shekarau, governor of Kano State, ran for the ANPP. Attempts to unite behind one candidate failed.

A new register and a false start

INEC compiled a new biometric voter register of 73.5 million people in early 2011. The National Assembly elections were due on 2 April, but voting was abandoned that morning when result sheets failed to arrive in many areas. INEC rescheduled the whole calendar, and the presidential election took place on 16 April 2011.

The result

Candidate Party Votes Share
Goodluck Jonathan PDP 22,495,187 58.87%
Muhammadu Buhari CPC 12,214,853 31.97%
Nuhu Ribadu ACN 2,079,151 5.44%
Ibrahim Shekarau ANPP 917,012 2.40%

Jonathan won most states in the South, the South-East and the Middle Belt, and met the constitutional requirement of at least 25% of the vote in two-thirds of the states. Buhari won twelve states, all in the North-West and North-East.

Domestic and international observers described the vote as orderly in much of the country and a substantial improvement on 2007. They also reported underage voting, ballot box snatching and implausibly high turnout in parts of the South-South and South-East.

Three days of violence

Protests began in the North as early results showed Jonathan winning, and turned into riots across twelve northern states. Human Rights Watch reported that more than 800 people were killed over three days, and relief agencies estimated that more than 65,000 people were displaced.

The worst killing was in Kaduna State, especially in the south of the state, where Muslim and Christian leaders said more than 500 people died in towns such as Zonkwa and Kafanchan. In Bauchi State, rioters attacked young corps members of the National Youth Service Corps who had worked as election staff. Ten were killed. The killings led to calls to keep corps members away from violence-prone areas during elections.

INEC postponed the governorship elections in Kaduna and Bauchi states because of the violence. Those votes were held two days after the rest of the country.

After 2011

President Jonathan set up a panel led by Sheikh Ahmed Lemu to investigate the violence. Its recommendations, including prosecuting those responsible and compensating victims, were only partly carried out.

For INEC, 2011 became the foundation for later reforms: the biometric register was cleaned and extended, and the commission began planning the permanent voter cards and card readers it would introduce in 2015. Politically, the defeat pushed the main opposition parties to merge. In 2013 the ACN, CPC, ANPP and part of APGA formed the All Progressives Congress (APC), which would win the next election.

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