Nigeria poll continues amid violence

Gubernatorial vote is final ballot after weeks of violence triggered by President Goodluck Jonathan’s win With hundreds already killed and others scared away from the ballot box, Nigerians are being asked to vote in volatile gubernatorial elections, this time choosing the pivotal politicians who control billions of dollars in oil money. Religious tensions are high in Africa’s most populous nation after riots erupted across the predominantly Muslim north last week when results showed the Christian president, Goodluck Jonathan, had clinched the election. Angry mobs set fire to houses where election workers were staying, and young female poll staff were raped while charred corpses lined highways. Tuesday’s gubernatorial vote is the final ballot in Nigeria, following weeks of legislative and presidential elections that ultimately forced some 40,000 people to flee their homes. Election officials postponed the governors’ races in the two northern states hardest hit by post-election violence, but vowed to press ahead with ballots elsewhere. “Some have paid the ultimate price for democracy and I am sure that I speak the minds of all Nigerians if I say that the nation will be eternally grateful to them,” Attahiru Jega, chief of Nigeria’s Independent Election Commission, said. “One way of immortalising them is to ensure that we complete the remaining elections successfully and not succumb to the designs of people who want to scuttle our collective aspiration for a strong, united and democratic country.” The gubernatorial races carry even more weight because governors represent the closest embodiment of power many ever see in a nation of 150 million people. The positions provide many politicians with personal fiefdoms where oil money sluices into unwatched state coffers that exceed those of neighbouring nations. Meanwhile, hospital shelves remain bare of drugs and deteriorating schools have no teachers. Twenty-nine states will hold their gubernatorial elections on Tuesday, along with some delayed federal legislative polls. Five states will not hold gubernatorial elections after a court decision before the presidential election extended the tenure of those seated there. Questions remain about who will staff the polling stations. Most election workers come from Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps, a mandatory year-long assignment for all Nigerians who graduate from university before the age of 30. Many have fled from the assignments after the violence left colleagues beaten, raped or killed. That violence, apparently started by Muslims supporting the opposition candidate and former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, left at least 500 people dead , though government officials have declined to release a toll for fear of inciting more riots. After the first wave of killings, Christians launched reprisal attacks that killed Muslims. In northern states, where Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change remains strong, some worry that more violence could accompany the election as its supporters vote against the ruling People’s Democratic party led by Jonathan. Nigeria’s north-east remains at risk, as an explosion at a hotel killed three people and wounded 14 others in the city of Maiduguri on Sunday, police said. While no one claimed responsibility for that attack, a radical Muslim sect recently vowed to keep fighting there. Violence remains likely in the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta, a region of swamplands and mangroves about the size of Portugal. Akwa Ibom state, home to many oilfields operated by the Nigerian subsidiary of US oil giant Exxon Mobil, has seen rioters burn cars and torch a campaign office for Jonathan in recent weeks. The region remains awash in military-grade assault rifles and weapons from a long-running militancy, though attacks on oil companies dropped after a 2009 government-sponsored amnesty programme. Akwa Ibom is a state where open and flagrant rigging took place during Nigeria’s flawed 2007 elections. At one polling station that year, an election official shoved an entire booklet of pre-voted ballots into a ballot box as a European Union observer watched. Maria Owi, the chief official of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Akwa Ibom, said she hoped rigging was reduced with this election. “The major players are the politicians. They should make sure they should not make any attempts to rig the election,” Owi told Associated Press. “They encourage these youths to be violent. I’m sure the youths cannot go out on their own and be violent.” Nigeria guardian.co.uk

Posted by on April 26, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.