Opposition supporters burned buildings, blocked roads and barricaded election offices in Nigeria on Sunday as partial results from flawed state elections showed a big victory for the ruling party.
Local newspapers estimated about 50 people were killed in fighting linked to rigging in Saturday’s elections for 36 state governors, which should give Nigerians an idea of what to expect at the presidential election on April 21.
The ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) held onto seven of nine states for which results were announced by the electoral body, the opposition All Nigeria People’s Party held one and the southeastern state of Abia swung to the opposition Progressive People’s Alliance.
The PDP won 28 of 36 states in the last elections in 2003, and there are half a dozen states where PDP’s dominance is vulnerable. These elections should lead to the first fully democratic transition in Africa’s most populous country and top oil producer since independence in 1960.
In the northern state of Bauchi, opposition supporters barricaded the main road to offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) and made fires on the streets.
”We are trying to protect our votes. We know that Mallam [the opposition candidate] has won the election. We are here because we don’t want the results to be tampered with,” one of the youths, who gave his name as Baba Ahmed, said.
In the southern oil producing state of Delta, where the PDP was announced the winner, youths armed with cutlasses and guns burned houses and blocked roads in the city of Warri while hundreds of women and children fled on the back of motorcycles.
”They are blocking everyone to show their anger. They are burning buildings and I heard sporadic gunfire,” said a taxi driver in Warri who gave his name as Famous.
The election stoked ethnic tensions in Delta, where a series of militant attacks against the oil industry in February 2006 forced thousands of foreign workers to flee and cut output by a fifth.
Police chief Sunday Ehindero said protests would not be tolerated.
‘Massive irregularities’
The opposition Action Congress said there were ”massive irregularities and fraud” on Saturday.
Problems included late and non-arrival of ballots, armed thugs snatching ballot boxes, kidnapping of election officers, voter intimidation, fake results sheets, mistakes in the voter register, faulty ballots and under-age voters, witnesses said.
Inec said it was generally satisfied with the vote, but it cancelled the poll in southeastern Imo state due to irregularities and said it would be reheld on April 28.
Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999 after three decades of almost continuous army rule, and these polls should bring the first handover from one elected president to another. President Olusegun Obasanjo must step down after serving two terms.
”If people impose themselves on the electorate it’s no better than military rule. The erosion of our democracy is horrendous,” senate president Ken Nnamani said from his native Enugu state, where he said there was almost no voting.
Dozens of people have been killed in political violence in the months leading up to the poll. Diplomats said the credibility of the exercise was already in doubt because dozens of mostly opposition candidates were disqualified for controversial indictments for fraud. – Reuters