Umaru Yar'Adua of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) won the highly controversial presidential election, and was sworn in on 29 May.

[6] On 16 May 2006 the Nigerian Senate voted to block a constitutional amendment which would have allowed its president to serve more than two terms in office.

[9] Atiku Abubakar, the incumbent Vice-President, announced on 25 November 2006 that he would contest the election,[10] and he subsequently became the presidential candidate of the Action Congress in December.

[11] The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Abubakar ineligible to run due to fraud charges.

[21] However, last-minute changes to add Abubakar to the list caused problems in distribution of ballots as papers did not arrive from South Africa until Friday evening.

Chief European Union observer Max van den Berg reported that the handling of the polls had "fallen far short" of basic international standards, and that "the process cannot be considered to be credible",[24] citing "poor election organisation, lack of transparency, significant evidence of fraud, voter disenfranchisement, violence and bias.

"[25] They described the election as "the worst they had ever seen anywhere in the world", with "rampant vote rigging, violence, theft of ballot boxes and intimidation".

[26] Felix Alaba Job, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference, cited massive fraud and disorganisation, including result sheets being passed around to politicians who simply filled in numbers as they chose while bribed returning electoral officers looked away.

[33] By the last count, Obasanjo's PDP party had won 29 of 33 states so far declared, with Human Rights Watch describing the vote-rigging as "shameless".

According to Ikimi, "In states like Edo, Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, Akwa Ibom etc., we know that the elections did not start even as late as 5 pm.

"[32] Also, Admiral Lanre Amusu who represented the ANPP at the INEC collation centre concurred what Chief Tom Ikimi said.

[36] The Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation claimed that the INEC deliberately left 70 percent of the ballot papers in a warehouse in Johannesburg, South Africa.

They claimed that the contractors could have freighted the entire 200-ton consignment into the country three days before the election (Thursday) but the INEC told them to bring only 30 percent of the ballot papers.

"I wish he [Yar'Adua] would carry his decency even further by publicly renouncing this poisoned chalice to say: 'I'm not a receiver of stolen goods'.