Nigeria wary as president leaves office

LAGOS, Nigeria - When Olusegun Obasanjo was elected Nigeria's president in 1999, Nigerians hoped long years of military misrule were behind them and stable democracy was ahead.

As he leaves office today, Nigeria's democracy is in doubt, and its people seem uncertain of their future. But Obasanjo, a 70-year-old former military leader, is credited with making economic strides, and earned respect abroad for his efforts to secure peace across Africa. While he will no longer be president, his influence in Africa's most populous country will likely remain strong.

Many of his critics say he failed woefully. Obasanjo, though, counts his greatest achievements in terms of intangibles.

"Democracy is not a destination, it's a journey," Obasanjo said in a televised farewell address yesterday. "We are well on our way to a greater destination."

Term limits kept Obasanjo from running again, and he says he will be a farmer after he leaves office. But last-minute political engineering has ensured a powerful party position for him: chairman of the party's board of trustees. A daughter, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, won a senate seat on his party's ticket in April elections and is likely to help keep the family name in the limelight. His wife Stella died in 2005.

Umaru Yar'Adua, picked by Obasanjo to lead his People's Democratic Party ticket, was declared winner of the elections that domestic and international observers said were deeply flawed. Yar'Adua takes office today, but has been battling a crisis of legitimacy since the vote.

"After eight years, Obasanjo is leaving Nigeria the way he met it," said Emma Ezeazu, who leads the Alliance for Credible Elections, an umbrella of civic groups campaigning to end the country's history of vote-rigging. "We have a tradition of rigged elections but he has given us the most-rigged election in the country's history."

When Obasanjo took office in 1999, his credentials were impressive. He had succeeded an assassinated predecessor as military ruler of the country in the 1970s, then became the first military ruler in Africa to voluntarily transfer power to an elected civilian government in 1979.

Retiring to his farm on the outskirts of the country's biggest city, Lagos, Obasanjo set up the Africa Leadership Forum and became an international statesman renowned for governance advice to other African countries. When the military toppled the civilian government that succeeded him, Obasanjo became a vocal critic of the autocratic regimes that spanned more than 15 years.

Obasanjo was charged with plotting to topple Gen. Sani Abacha in 1995 and given a life jail term that later was reduced to 15 years. Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who succeeded Abacha on his death in 1998, freed his friend Obasanjo.

Obasanjo won the elections that followed by a landslide. He vowed to tackle Nigeria's debilitating corruption and abysmal power-supply situation, as well as heal ethnic and religious wounds that made the country prone to upheavals.

But many complain that Nigeria is still rife with problems. The infrastructure has decayed, and fuel shortages and power cuts - which Obasanjo promised to end within two years of assuming office - have hit their worst levels in the country's history.