Ex-US Ambassador: Nigeria’s Presidential Poll Bad News for Democracy

Former US Ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, has said the 2019 presidential election in the country has been bad news for democracy.

Campbell, who also served as US Department of State Foreign Service Officer from 1975 to 2007, said the election was “marred by historically low turnout and credible allegations of rigging”.

In his election post-mortem for the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, Campbell, who has co-authored a book on “Nigeria: What everyone needs to know,” also said Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is unlikely to win his electoral dispute in court.

“Buhari’s margin of victory—some four million votes—is so large that it is unlikely courts will overturn the result,” Campbell said.

He also suggested that the elections were a step back from the 2015 presidential election, quoting Situation Room’s report on the election

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