Ethnic militants vowed to prevent voting Saturday in a broad swathe of Nigeria’s oil delta during legislative elections that pose a test for civilian rule in Africa’s most populous nation.
On the eve of the vote scheduled to begin on Saturday morning, ethnic Ijaw militant groups pledged to prevent election officials from setting up voting stations in the Niger Delta’s mangrove swamps and rivers southwest of Warri.
The Ijaws, the largest ethnic group in the delta with eight million people, said their boycott was because authorities had refused to change electoral boundaries which the Ijaws say favour rival Itsekiris.
Ijaw activists fought days of battles last month against Itsekiri rivals and government soldiers, leaving more than 100 people reported killed and prompting thousands of others to flee.
The fighting has forced oil multinationals to evacuate dozens of facilities, shutting down 40% of the two-million barrels of crude Nigeria produces daily.
Nigeria is the fifth largest supplier of US oil imports.
”There is no way we are going to allow elections,” Ijaw activist Kennedy Ikurute told The Associated Press. ”Nobody can come in here without our agreement.”
As campaigning ended 24 hours before the vote, electoral commission officials said on state television that voting would go ahead in each of Nigeria’s 36 states, including the two most volatile Niger Delta states — Delta and Bayelsa.
Thousands of soldiers and police were patrolling Nigerian cities on Friday, including the southeastern oil port of Warri, where two people died in street violence pitting supporters of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party against opposition Alliance for Democracy militants, witnesses said.
Among the casualties was a well-known gang leader nicknamed ”Osama bin Laden,” whom Thomas Udu, a local taxi driver, said he witnessed being shot dead by soldiers. Another unidentified body was found close by.
Witnesses said late Friday that two people were killed in unrelated political violence in the southwestern city of Ilorin.
Sixty-one million voters are registered for Saturday’s legislative ballot in which 3 000 candidates are seeking 469 seats in the House of Representatives and Senate. Campaigning ahead of the vote has been marred by political violence and assassinations.
Presidential voting takes place on April 19, pitting the incumbent, military leader-turned-civilian statesman President Olusegun Obasanjo, against 19 opposition candidates — including three other former army generals.
Nigeria has never held successful civilian-run elections.
Previous attempts have been scuttled by military coups.
Ifeanyi Enwerem, director of the Roman Catholic Church’s Justice, Development and Peace Center which has thousands of local observers deployed to monitor the ballot, said Friday as many as one-third of eligible Nigerian voters had been prevented from registering for the upcoming vote because of a lack of electoral
commission funds and materials.
”There is a fear that this lack of funds could prevent (the elections) from being seen to be completely effective,” said Enwerem.
Local newspapers reported on Friday that security forces seized fake ballot boxes in the southwestern city of Ilorin, although police said they were unable to confirm the report. The police commissioner in another southwestern city, Ibadan, denied local
press reports of political violence there overnight.
The head of Nigeria’s electoral commission, Abel Guobadia, warned his workers to rebuff any attempts by other authorities to meddle with the balloting.
But he said his agency is ”ready, able and committed to conduct the elections to the general approbation of all – and thereby to justify the confidence of our people.”
US Ambassador Howard Jeter said in a Nigerian television broadcast on Friday that he hoped elections would ”affirm Nigeria’s dedication to democracy” and provide ”an example to other nations.”
With 126-million people from 250 language groups, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation. More than 10 000 people have been killed in political, ethnic and religious violence since Obasanjo was first elected in 1999, ending 15 years of brutal military rule. – Sapa-AP