News Analysis: Nigerian Presidential Election Takes off on Impressive Note

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, April 20, 2003

News Analysis: Nigerian Presidential Election Takes off on Impressive Note

Elections to the presidency and governors in most of the 36 states in Africa's most populous country Nigeria have taken off very smoothly.

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Elections to the presidency and governors in most of the 36 states in Africa's most populous country Nigeria have taken off very smoothly.

The voting started on schedule at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) Saturday as election officers and agents of 30 political parties were on hand, unlike the parliamentary election a week ago, when election officials and materials arrived more than five hours later than schedule.

A distinct feature of the presidential and governorship elections which ended at 3 p.m. (1400 GMT) was the impressive turnout of voters, which in most polling centers recorded 50 percent higher than the turnout in the parliamentary election, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Malachy Oduyemi, a governmental official, who voted at a ministerial polling center in the capital Abuja, said that he voted for the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) of President Olusegun Obasanjo whom he described as "very courageous in tackling the country's serious problems."

His voting counterpart Emeka Akor, a scholar, agreed with him and said the parliamentary election a week earlier was of little importance, so he did not vote in the election.

However, he believed that the stakes were quite higher in the presidential election and therefore he voted for the main opposition candidate, retired General Muhammudu Buhari of the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) whom he described as "an agent of change."

Most polling or voting centers in Abuja have long queues with orderly procession of voters to the secluded shelters housing transparent ballot boxes. An array of security personnel and domestic observers serve as "watch dogs" at each polling center.

At a voting center in a high brow Aso Drive in Abuja, ANPP agent Abdullahi Ibrahim expressed satisfaction with the election officials.

Appointed by the INEC, a body charged with the conduct of elections, he described their handling of the voting as "an improvement of last week's parliamentary vote."

Last week, after the parliamentary election, about 25 opposition parties grouped under the platform of the Conference of Registered Political Parties (CRPP), with the main opposition candidate Buhari at its head, bitterly rejected the results of the election which they described as massively rigged in favor of the ruling PDP.

They even threatened "mass action" that is where voters or citizens resort to civil disobedience to protest the rigging of the polls.

However, some other states in the country were not so lucky to record peaceful and orderly voting in the presidential election, as reports have indicated sporadic violence.

Violence has erupted in the states of Enugu, Ebonyi, Delta and Bylesea. It may take some days before the election results are known.

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