19th April, 2011
Nigerian government has debunked foreign reports about the just concluded presidential election, which read religious meanings to the voting pattern in the country.
President Jonathan’s spokesman, Ima Niboro, said the reports about Nigerians being polarized on ethnic and religious lines were incorrect.
”Those that are being led down this path only risk pandering to an ancient and outdated stereotype of ethnic and religious divisions in Nigeria ”, Niboro said in a statement issued today.
”The current reality as vividly shown by the detailed results of the Presidential elections is that Nigerians proved by their voting pattern in the elections that that they have moved beyond divisive and retrogressive sectional politics.
”A cursory analysis of the results gives the lie to the very unhelpful assertion that the “Muslim North†voted against President Jonathan. It is a verifiable fact that millions of Muslim Northerners voted to give the President a truly national mandate to continue in office.
”President Jonathan won in Adamawa and Taraba States in the North-East, and Nassarawa in the North Central. The President got over one million votes which equates to 46 per cent of the valid votes in Kaduna State and also led the polls in such states like Plateau, Kwara and Kogi, all of which have sizeable Muslim populations.
‘Reports of the polarization of Nigeria along religious lines is further debunked by the fact that President Jonathan also got over 30 per cent of the votes in the largely Muslim states of Jigawa, Sokoto, Kebbi and Niger.
It is therefore quite unhelpful to state that the country is divided along Muslim/Christian lines when millions of Northern Muslims voted to endorse the candidacy of Jonathan.
The President’s pan Nigeria mandate is a thing of joy to the vast majority of Nigerians, and it is unnecessary to sully it with with sectional interpretations due to a lack of understanding of the sometimes complex demographics of this great Nation”.