Some opposition activists are worried about possible fraud Further delay in Nigeria election
Some opposition activists are worried about possible fraud Legislative elections, initially due last Saturday, are to be delayed for a third time in some parts of Nigeria, the election chief has announced.
Attahiru Jega said the new postponements would affect 13-14% of electoral districts, where voting took place last week.
He said it was not possible to get replacement ballot papers in time.
The delays have raised new doubts over whether this month’s round of national elections can be free and fair.
Previous elections held since the 1999 end of military rule have been characterised by allegations of widespread fraud and violence.
Presidential elections have been put back a week to 16 April, with polls to choose the 36 powerful state governors now 10 days later.
It had been hoped that Mr Jega, a respected academic, would be able to run more credible elections.
He says he had no choice but to delay the polls.
“What happened was unfortunate but it has happened… It is better to have a postponed election than to have a terribly flawed election,” he said.
He said polls would not be held on Saturday in 15 senatorial districts and 48 constituencies for the House of Representatives.
The National Assembly is made up of 109 senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives.
Electoral chief Attahiru Jega was brought in last year to overhaul a system often regarded as flawed.
Nigeria: A nation divided
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has won all elections since the end of military rule in 1999. It won two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states last time. But having a southerner – President Goodluck Jonathan – as its candidate in the presidential elections may lose it some votes in the north.
Nigeria’s 160 million people are divided between numerous ethno-linguistic groups and also along religious lines. Broadly, the Hausa-Fulani people based in the north are mostly Muslims. The Yorubas of the south-west are divided between Muslims and Christians, while the Igbos of the south-east and neghbouring groups are mostly Christian or animist. The Middle Belt is home to hundreds of groups with different beliefs, and around Jos there are frequent clashes between Hausa-speaking Muslims and Christian members of the Berom community.
Despite its vast resources, Nigeria ranks among the most unequal countries in the world, according to the UN. The poverty in the north is in stark contrast to the more developed southern states. While in the oil-rich south-east, the residents of Delta and Akwa Ibom complain that all the wealth they generate flows up the pipeline to Abuja and Lagos.
Southern residents tend to have better access to healthcare, as reflected by the greater uptake of vaccines for polio, tuberculosis, tetanus and diphtheria. Some northern groups have in the past boycotted immunisation programmes, saying they are a Western plot to make Muslim women infertile. This led to a recurrence of polio, but the vaccinations have now resumed.
Female literacy is seen as the key to raising living standards for the next generation. For example, a newborn child is far likelier to survive if its mother is well-educated. In Nigeria we see a stark contrast between the mainly Muslim north and the Christian and animist south. In some northern states less than 5% of women can read and write, whereas in some Igbo areas more than 90% are literate.
Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer and among the biggest in the world but most of its people subsist on less than $2 a day. The oil is produced in the south-east and some militant groups there want to keep a greater share of the wealth which comes from under their feet. Attacks by militants on oil installations led to a sharp fall in Nigeria’s output during the last decade. But in 2010, a government amnesty led thousands of fighters to lay down their weapons.
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