Heavy security for Nigerian voters after deadly bomb blast

Nigerians voted under a heavy security presence Saturday after bombers targeted an election office just hours before the parliamentary poll, which had already been delayed and is only the first of three crucial votes planned for April.

By News Wires (text)

REUTERS - Nigerians went out to vote under tight security on Saturday in a ballot delayed by administrative bungling and marred by a deadly bomb attack hours before polling stations opened.

The setbacks have added to questions over whether Africa's giant, with more people than Russia, can hold its first credible elections since military rule ended 12 years ago.

Saturday's parliamentary vote, delayed a week because ballot papers failed to arrive across much of the country, will be followed by the more important presidential election on April 16, with governorship polls in 36 states on April 26.

Soldiers manned improvised roadblocks of tyres and upturned tables on main roads in parts of the commercial capital Lagos, while police took up their posts at dawn at polling stations in schools, bank forecourts and on the edge of the road.

Security was tightened nationwide after a bombing killed at least 10 people late on Friday at an office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Suleja, on the edge of the capital Abuja. There was no claim of responsibility.

"Nigerians must remain resolved not to allow the perpetrators of this dastardly act to achieve their aim of scuttling the aspiration of Nigerians for free, fair, peaceful and credible elections," said Attahiru Jega, the academic who heads INEC and has pledged to hold a fair election for once.

People headed for polling stations across the country of 150 million, which stretches from the oil-producing mangrove swamps and teeming cities near the coast to the dustblown fringes of the Sahara desert.

Worries

"We want to fight for our own rights, we have to come out and vote," said Timothy Mshelia in Shaffa, a cluster of concrete buildings and mud dwellings in northern Borno state.

"But people must not lose their lives for this as in the past," he said, close to where four people were shot as they prepared electoral materials on Friday afternoon.

Under procedures to try to stop cheating, up to 73 million voters must first register from 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) before the actual voting starts at 12.30 p.m.

The ballot was called off last Saturday after voting slips and other materials failed to reach most of the country. Adding to the confusion was the fact that voting had started in some areas by the time it was cancelled.

Yet another delay will affect voting in parts of Nigeria on Saturday, but the election is due to take place in almost 90 percent of constituencies.

Seats in the assembly are fiercely contested by candidates who stand to win a package whose benefits alone amount to more than $1 million a year.

The run-up to the polls has been marred by isolated bomb attacks on campaign rallies, violence blamed on a radical sect in the remote northeast and sectarian clashes in the centre of a nation roughly split between a Muslim north and Christian south.

Human Rights Watch said before Friday's bombing that at least 85 people had been killed in political violence since the start of November.

President Goodluck Jonathan is widely expected to win the presidential poll, but his ruling People's Democratic Party could see its parliamentary majority reduced.

The PDP holds more than three-quarters of the 360 seats in the House of Representatives and of the 109 in the Senate.