Outgoing Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo told members of his party on Friday to expect a new leadership style under President-elect Umaru Yar'Adua but a continuation of reform policies.
Obasanjo, who is due to become chairman of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) after he steps down on May 29, said the party would decide policy under the next government and the government would implement it.
The comments to newly elected PDP office holders reinforced perceptions that Obasanjo, who plucked Yar'Adua from obscurity a few months before the presidential election in April, will try to control the next administration from behind the scenes.
"For God's sake don't compare Umaru Yar'Adua with Obasanjo. We are two different personalities," said the former military ruler, who is renowned for his short temper and brusque manner.
"I will immediately react. If you say things I will even stop you if you are going too far. Umaru is patient, tolerant. He will be looking at you and even allow you to make a fool of yourself, but he will react all the same, and if you think he will not react you are deceiving yourself."
The PDP won a landslide victory in last month's polls for president, state governors and legislators, but international observers said widespread rigging and violence meant the elections were not credible. Obasanjo made no reference to the malpractices. He congratulated party members for their victory and praised Yar'Adua for promising to sustain the reform agenda.
"We will ensure that the party will be a party of policy and the government will be a government of programmes to implement the policies of the party," Obasanjo said. "We are building a new Nigeria where party supremacy will be maintained ... You cannot be loyal to the nation when you are not loyal to your party," said Obasanjo, whose election in 1999 ended three decades of almost continuous military dictatorship.
Obasanjo's reforms, based around spending controls and liberalisation, have won international praise but failed to lift the majority out of poverty in Africa's most populous nation.
Analysts say his anti-corruption fight became tarnished by political interference, as he used the anti-fraud squad to disqualify opposition candidates and intimidate internal opposition before the elections.
International observers said the PDP was mostly responsible for widespread ballot-stuffing, voter intimidation and violence in the elections which had been billed as the first fully democratic transition in Africa's top oil producer.
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