Nigeria's former anti-corruption czar, who won international acclaim for seeking charges against members of the oil-rich nation's political elite, was chosen Friday as the presidential candidate of the country's strongest opposition party. Nuhu Ribadu's entry into the race comes hours after the nation's ruling People's Democratic Party overwhelmingly endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan in a primary election decided just before dawn on Friday, according to AP. The two likely will be the strongest competitors in the April 8 election, though Jonathan's party remains the only one with the money and political connections necessary to manipulate flawed elections in Africa's most populous nation. Since the handover in 1999 from military rule to a civilian government, that party has dominated politics in the West African nation. Ribadu's candidacy received a resounding «yes» vote during a convention held Friday afternoon in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos, the power base of the opposition party. Two other candidates withdrew from the race earlier to allow Ribadu to ascend to the candidacy without an election. «It is clear that the (ruling party) is on its way out,» Ribadu told delegates. «There is nothing remaining in the (ruling party) and we are the beneficiaries.» Ribadu served as the head of the country's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission under former President Olusegun Obasanjo. First appointed in 2003, Ribadu began investigating the powerful politicians who populate the country's ruling party. While Ribadu won international support for fighting graft in a country considered as one of the world's most corrupt, others criticized him for only pursuing the perceived political enemies of Obasanjo. He also once estimated that corruption had cost Nigeria _ a nation where most people live on less than $2 a day _ more than $380 billion since it gained its independence from Britain in 1960. Ribadu saw his political fortunes wane after the election of the late President Umaru Yar'Adua in 2007. At the time, he had begun investigations into senior ruling-party politicians believed to have bankrolled the deeply flawed elections that brought Yar'Adua to office. Officials later reduced Ribadu's police rank and refused to grant him a graduation certificate from the police training program. Ribadu left Nigeria for the U.S. after he said he was the target of a drive-by shooting. -- SPA
