Nigeria on 18 May 2010, by the National Assembly. His confirmation followed President Jonathan's nomination of Sambo to that position. Goodluck Jonathan served as Nigeria's president until 16 April 2011, when a new presidential election in Nigeria was conducted. Jonathan of the PDP was declared the winner on 19 April 2011, having won the election with a total of 22,495,187 of the 39,469,484 votes cast, to stand ahead of Muhammadu Buhari from the main opposition party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), which won 12,214,853 of the total votes cast. The international media reported the elections as having run smoothly with
Head of state Head of state A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona that officially represents the national unity and legitimacy of a sovereign state. Depending on the country's form of government and separation of powers, the head of state may be a ceremonial figurehead or concurrently the head of government. In the parliamentary system the head of state is the "de jure" leader of the nation, because the leader "de facto" is the prime minister. In contrast, the semi-presidential system has both heads of state and government as the leaders "de facto" of the nation (in practice