Nigeria Elects New President Amid Boko Haram Threat
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iStock/Thinkstock(ABUJA, Nigeria) — It’s goodbye to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who lost his job to former Army general Muhammadu Buhari in a hotly contested national election that could determine the fate of the west African nation.
The changing of the guard representing the first civilian transfer of power is a shift in direction for Nigeria, which has been bedeviled by Islamic extremist Boko Haram militants running amok in the northeast for the past five years.
In addition to blaming Jonathan for failing to deal with the threat from Boko Haram, voters have also accused the outgoing president of corruption with oil-rich Nigeria falling on hard times.
Buhari briefly served as Nigeria’s president after a military coup in the early 1980s.
Along with trying to restore faith in Nigeria’s government, he’ll have to deal with Boko Haram, which killed upwards of 10,000 people last year. Its campaign of terrorism also involves kidnapping that including the 2014 abduction of more 200 schoolgirls who are believed to have been sold into slavery or married off to the group’s leaders.
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