Nigeria's electoral process, which began last December with municipal elections, came to a climax on Saturday with the election of Gen Olusegun Obasanjo as President. The 60-year-old former military leader will preside over the nation's first democratic government after 16 years of military dictatorship.
The retired general is best known in international circles as the soldier who voluntarily relinquished power to a civilian government in 1979 after an election. He is also an international statesman, having been a member of the Commonwealth group of eminent people that visited South Africa in the days of apartheid to negotiate an end to that regime.
When he was jailed in 1995 by the military junta for allegedly taking part in a coup plot, the world rose to his defence. Gen Obasanjo's personal friend, the former US president Mr Jimmy Carter, and President Nelson Mandela of South Africa led the call for his freedom.
But Gen Obasanjo is a man whose image shines brighter outside Nigeria than inside it. The core of Nigeria's democratic movement, including such notable figures as Wole Soyinka, the Nobel laureate, and Mr Gani Fawehimi, a Lagos lawyer and human rights activist, does not regard Mr Obasanjo as one of its own. Neither do the Yorubas, Gen Obasanjo's own ethnic group in the south-west.
To many Nigerians, he is a late convert to democracy and liberalism and his commitment to these ideals is very doubtful.
Those who oppose the retired general do so for a variety of reasons. Most of the grievances of the democratic left centre on its perception of him as a product of military misadventure in Nigerian politics. To reward him with the nation's highest elective office, liberals argue, is to encourage future incursion of the military into politics and governance.
Citing a series of human rights violations by him as a military leader from 1976 to 1979, many critics fear that, as a civilian President, he may resort to coercion and intimidation when faced with strong opposition.
The Yorubas, on the other hand, have not forgiven him for presiding over the 1979 elections that, they believed, denied victory to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a respected Yoruba chief. The elections had been indecisive but the government and, later the courts, gave victory to Mr Shehu Shagari, a northerner.
But the election controversy was only the last, not the biggest, grievance of liberals and democrats against the Obasanjo regime. The most serious was his attack on the university system. In 1978, he proscribed the National Union of Nigerian Students. He also arbitrarily dismissed all university teachers and took direct control of the universities.
Critics insist that his action started the decay of the nation's university system. They also accused the government of other severe human rights violations, including the establishment of a detention centre on a remote island.
By October 1979, when he relinquished power, Obasanjo had become a name that evoked anger among many Nigerians. The Ijaws of the oil-rich delta resented his government's enactment of the land-use decree that made the federal government the sole custodian of all lands. It effectively took control of oil wealth out of their hands and handed it to foreign companies.
It is a misconception to believe that his ascent to the presidency will mean the end of his difficulties, or the beginning of Nigeria's unity and prosperity. His many political enemies are alive and active. Nigerian students have vowed to go on the warpath against him. "We will not stand by and watch Obasanjo take the nation for a ride the second time," they threatened in a pre-election statement.
The onus is on the new leader to prove them wrong. It will not be an easy task. He will need a great deal of patient and tolerance. It is his second chance to sow and nurture the seed of democracy in Nigeria. More relevant than any other question is whether he can forsake the soldier's mentality, be less vindictive and belligerent. These qualities served him well on his way up. Now, at the top, they could hinder him.
Abel Ugba is a Nigerian journalist. He is studying for a postgraduate degree in journalism at Dublin City University, Dublin.