/ 25 January 1999

SPLIT IN NIGERIA ELECTION PACT

NIGERIA’S second largest political group, the centre-right All Peoples Party (APP), is split over plans for an electoral pact in next month’s presidential elections. The leaders of the APP, which took nine of Nigeria’s 36 states in state-level elections on January 9, agreed earlier this month to team up for the poll, presenting a joint candidate with the Alliance for Democracy (AD). But a split appeared last week after the AD made it clear that, although it was smaller than the APP, it expected to produce the alliance’s candidate for president. This follows five leading members of the APP, all hopefuls for the APP ticket in the February 27 election, issuing a statement that insisted that the alliance’s candidate come from the APP.