Goodluck Jonathan

Three decades after he first came to power in a military coup, Muhammadu Buhari will be sworn in on May 29 as elected President of Nigeria, giving him control of an African giant struggling with slowing economic growth and a raging Islamist insurgency.

Nigeria?s president-elect Muhammadu Buhari cautioned April 14 that he could not make promises on the return of 219 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram exactly a year ago.

?We do not know if the Chibok girls can be rescued. Their whereabouts remain unknown. As much as I wish to, I cannot promise that we can find them,? he said in a statement.

Challenger Muhammadu Buhari won Nigeria's presidential election by 2.57 million votes, official results showed Wednesday, defeating incumbent Goodluck Jonathan in the first democratic change of power in Africa's most populous nation.
      

Nigerians on March 30 awaited the first results of a closely fought general election pitting President Goodluck Jonathan against ex-military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for calm after deadly riots followed 2011 polls.
      

Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in an audio message published online on March 7, after three bombs wreaked havoc in northeast Nigeria, killing 58 and wounding scores.
      

Boko Haram on Feb. 11 launched a pre-dawn raid in Gamboru, northeastern Nigeria, looking to overwhelm Chadian troops who had pushed them out of the border town.
      
The military in N'Djamena said the militants were repelled but the counter-attack was an indication of the task facing regional forces aiming to crush the rebellion.
      

Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan, has lived up to his name again. Three minutes after he left an election rally in the northern city of Gombe last week Monday, a suicide bomber blew herself up in the nearby parking lot. "The president had just passed the parking lot and we were trailing behind his convoy when the explosion happened," said a local witness, Mohammed Bolari.

Nigeria has postponed its presidential election on security grounds as the Boko Haram conflict intensifies, handing a potential lifeline to the ruling party as it battles a tough challenge from the opposition.
      

Nigeria's military on Feb. 1 repelled a Boko Haram assault on the key city of Maiduguri as violence raged across the country's northeast just two weeks before national elections.
 
The hours-long attack on the strategic capital of Borno state was the Islamists' second attempt to take Maiduguri in a week.    

Nigeria's military fought Boko Haram militants in the restive northeastern city of Maiduguri on Jan. 25, as US Secretary of State John Kerry jetted in to discuss fears about election-related violence.