Attahiru Jega, a university teacher and chairman of the INEC from August 2010, overhauled a sclerotic and corrupt election machinery, put in place a new and credible voting register, and retrained and deployed his staff to 120,000 polling stations in a vast country – all in six months. The election was always going to be a challenge, all the more so because, following the end of military rule in 1999, Nigerian politicians had become habituated to rigging polls.