Challenger, Buhari, takes early lead in Nigeria vote

In a cliffhanger of an election, early returns Monday night from half the states showed Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and Nigerian presidential challenger Muhammadu Buhari almost even as the United States and Britain expressed concerns about meddling with the vote count.

Buhari, a 72-year-old former military ruler, has campaigned as a born-again democrat intent on cleaning up corruption in Africa's most populous nation. 

Counting stopped just before midnight Monday with Jonathan winning nine states and the tiny Federal Capital Territory to Buhari's nine states.

But Buhari won many more votes —8.5 million to Jonathan's 6.48.

Another 18 states — including Lagos which has the biggest number of voters of any state — still have to send results to the counting center in Abuja, electoral commissioner Attahiru Jega announced. He said the count resumes at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

In the northern states of Kano and Kaduna, where Jonathan faces vehement criticism for his government's failure to stop attacks by the armed group Boko Haram, Buhari won overwhelming majorities. In Kano, the state with the second-largest number of voters and also the state hit hardest by fighters from Boko Haram, Buhari won 1.9 million votes to Jonathan's 216,000. In Kaduna, Buhari won 1.1 million votes to Jonathan's 484,000.

Jonathan and Buhari are the front-runners among 14 candidates for president.

Protests erupted Monday in two southwestern states won by Buhari's party, and authorities declared a curfew in southern Rivers state after results gave Jonathan 95 percent of votes there.

The count was being carried out in the presence of party representatives, national and international observers and media. The counting began two hours late, with no explanation given for the delay.

The U.S. and Britain issued a joint statement saying they would be "very concerned" by any attempts to undermine the independence of the electoral commission and distort the will of the Nigerian people.

"So far, we have seen no evidence of systemic manipulation of the process. But there are disturbing indications that the collation process — where the votes are finally counted — may be subject to deliberate political interference," said the statement, signed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his British counterpart, Philip Hammond.

Jonathan's party called the suggestions "absolute balderdash" and demanded evidence. Party spokesman Femi Fani-Kayode told foreign reporters that they "completely reject the assertion or the notion that we are in any way interfering with INEC," the electoral commission.

"I will challenge John Kerry or any other foreign official to provide the evidence," he  added.

Widespread rigging and violent clashes have occurred during many previous elections in Nigeria. This year, election officials introduced biometric cards aimed at stemming fraud, but some card readers were not working properly, and voting was extended to Sunday in 300 out of 150,000 polling stations where that problem occurred, the election commission said. Even Jonathan suffered a 40-minute delay as officials vainly tried to get four different machines to recognize his fingerprint.

Turnout was high Saturday among the nearly 60 million people eligible to vote in the election, which took place despite a surge of violence by Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.

The National Human Rights Commission said 50 people were killed during the balloting, including a state legislator, a soldier and two electoral workers.

Nevertheless, commission chairman Chidi Odinkalu said the election showed "a maturing political system."

"The best guarantee of a violence-free election is a credible count and collation," Odinkalu said in a statement.

There was still concern, however, that the announcement of the results could trigger violence. After Buhari lost to Jonathan in 2011, more than 1,000 people died and some 65,000 were forced from their homes in northern riots, according to the National Human Rights Commission.

Police in Port Harcourt, a center of oil production in Nigeria's south, fired tear gas Monday morning to disperse thousands of opposition supporters who demanded the cancellation of the election in Rivers state.

The opposition wants new elections in the southern states of Rivers and Akwa Ibom, alleging irregularities that include missing and false results sheets and electoral officials being replaced by government officials loyal to Jonathan. The national election commission said it was investigating numerous complaints.

Just days before the vote, Nigeria's military, backed by armies from neighboring countries, announced major victories over Boko Haram after months of defeats.

The U.N. secretary-general's special envoy to West Africa, Mohammed Ibn Chambas, told the Security Council Monday that Boko Haram was "unable to disrupt the electoral process." The legitimacy of Nigeria's next government is important for ensuring the support of the international community, he said.

Jonathan, 57, is a Christian from a minority tribe in the lush oil-producing south, while 72-year-old Buhari is a Muslim from the semi-arid north that is home to farmers, cattle herders and centuries-old caliphates.

Voters are also electing legislators for parliament, where the opposition currently has a slight edge over Jonathan's party in the House of Assembly. Voting for 13 constituencies was postponed until April because of shortages of ballot papers.

Dozens of legislators defected from Jonathan's party to a new opposition coalition that has transformed Nigeria's political landscape by uniting behind one candidate for the first time. Jonathan's party has governed Nigeria since 1999, when decades of military dictatorship ended.

Wire services