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73,528,040 registered voters[1] 25% in each of 2/3 States + Majority[2] votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Turnout | 53.68%[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() States won by Jonathan (in green), Buhari (blue), and Ribadu (purple) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Presidential elections were held in Nigeria on 16 April 2011, postponed from 9 April 2011.[3][4][5] The election followed controversy as to whether a northerner or southerner should be allowed to become president given the tradition of rotating the top office between the north and the south after the death of Umaru Yar'Adua, a northerner, when Goodluck Jonathan, another southerner assumed the interim presidency.
Immediately after the election widespread violence erupted in the northern, Muslim parts of the country.[6] Jonathan was declared the winner on 19 April.[7] However, international observers declared the election to be "orderly, free and fair" in the entire southern half of the country.[8]