How Jonathan one call saved a thousand lives - bbc editor

BBC Hausa editor said, he was at the APC camp when President Jonathan called at about 17:00 when the result from all three state were being declared, then it was obvious that the APC candidate was leading with huge margin.
He said their was confusion in the APC camp as to whether to start celebrating or anxiously wait for the final declaration as previous elections have been ridiculled by rigging. Even everyone was surprised due to PDP, Orubebe accusing the INEC chairman of being bias.

I was pretty sure that I was the first journalist to get the story so as soon as I got off the phone I alerted the BBC’s election desk and tweeted the details.
Mansur Liman’s twitter message about the call
There were, of course, people who were very concerned about what could happen if the result was contested.
And I have since discovered that members of the National Peace Committee, which is headed by former President Abdulsalami Abubakar, visited President Jonathan as the results were being announced.
I understand they were the ones who persuaded the president to do something to avoid any trouble, and shortly after the visit he made the call.
‘Pick up the phone’
But even making the call was not straight forward. I heard later that the president could not actually get through to Gen Buhari.
He rang all the numbers he had for people in his camp, but no-one answered.
It turns out that so many calls were coming through that there was no time to answer them all and Gen Buhari did not even know where his phone was.
President Jonathan resorted to sending a messenger round to his rival’s house to tell him that the president wanted to speak to him. And that he should pick up the phone the next time he tried to call.
Supporters of the presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressive Congress with a motorbike during celebrations in Kano
APC celebrations greeted the result but things could have been very different
By making that call the president saved Nigeria a great deal of pain. If the PDP had insisted that they had won the election, and the APC had said the same, the country would have been in chaos.
Lives would have been lost and property would have been destroyed. That call showed that in Nigeria, people can put the country first.
I have heard from PDP supporters that the president took the decision to make the call without consulting anyone. They told me that if he had talked to some of his advisers, they would have objected.
The phone call by Jonathan to Buhari has been praised by the International committee and Buhari himself.