Nigerian general election, 2011

Nigerian presidential election, 2011

← 2007 16 April 2011 2015 →
73,528,040 registered voters 25% in each of 2/3 States + Majority votes needed to win
Turnout	53.68%
Nominee Goodluck Jonathan Muhammadu Buhari Party PDP CPC Running mate Namadi Sambo Tunde Bakare Popular vote 22,495,187 12,214,853 Percentage 58.89% 31.98%
States won by Jonathan (in green), Buhari (red), and Ribadu (blue)
President before election Goodluck Jonathan (Acting) PDP Elected President Goodluck Jonathan PDP

Goodluck Jonathan (Acting)
PDP

Goodluck Jonathan
PDP

A presidential election was held in Nigeria on 16 April 2011, postponed from 9 April 2011. 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. Jonathan was declared the winner on 19 April.

According to a gentlemen's agreement within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) power is to rotate between the predominantly Muslim north and Christian south every two terms; this meant the flag bearer of the party for the 2011 election was scheduled to be represented by a Northerner. After the death of one term President Umar Yar'Adua, a Northern Muslim, his Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, a Southern Christian, took over as acting president. The suggestion that Jonathan was considering running for the presidency in his own right was controversial as Yar'Adua had only served one of the two possible terms as president after Southerner Olusegun Obasanjo.

Due to the zoning system, a Northern Muslim candidate, Ibrahim Babangida, a former general and military ruler, and Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, ran for the presidency. After initial doubts, the interim president Goodluck Jonathan declared his intention to run for the presidency on 18 September 2010. Muhammadu Buhari was seen as the principal opposition to Jonathan besides Nuhu Ribadu.

In 2011, sixty-three political parties were registered in Nigeria Online newspaper Naija Gist reported that twenty-one parties were fielding candidates, but listed only 19. Only one woman, Ebiti Ndok, was running.