KATSINA – Nigerian presidential poll results Sunday showed sharp divides between the mainly Muslim north and mostly Christian south after a largely peaceful vote, though sporadic riots broke out over rigging fears.
Millions of voters turned out for Saturday’s election as Africa’s most populous country bid to put years of rigging and badly flawed ballots behind it and hold the cleanest polls for head of state in nearly two decades. Observers gave the polls an initial thumbs up, but concerns were raised over sharp regional divisions, a scenario many analysts had hoped to avoid in a country as fractious as Nigeria, roughly split between Christians and Muslims.
“There’s good news in this Nigerian presidential election: we’re counting actual votes and people are interested in the count,” said Chidi Odinkalu of the Open Society Justice Initiative NGO. “And quite bad news: the country is badly divided, north vs. south.” The counting and vote collating process was also being closely watched amid fears that a tight race could lead to ballot fraud in an attempt to avoid a runoff election.
Sporadic riots broke out in areas of the north over fears the ruling party would attempt to rig the vote. President Goodluck Jonathan, favoured going into the election, appeared to be doing well in his native south, while his main challenger, ex-military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, was winning by a wide margin in a number of northern states. Given the size of Nigeria — a country of some 150 million people — it remained too early to draw any firm conclusions.
The electoral commission has said it intends to release full results within 48 hours after the end of voting in Africa’s largest oil producer. A number of incidents were reported across Nigeria’s vast north, including riots in several areas that led to the burning of at least two officials’ houses.
Offices belonging to the ruling party and electoral commission in an area of Bauchi state were burned over allegations of rigging as well. An explosion also hit a hotel in Kaduna on Saturday evening, wounding eight, according to police, but details remained unclear. In Bauchi and the north’s main city of Kano, residents reported that some voters slept outside ballot-counting centres, refusing to leave to make sure the tally was not rigged.
In the months leading up to the polls, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party sought to heal internal rifts over whether it should abandon Jonathan, a southern Christian, in favour of a candidate from the north. Jonathan, 53 and the first president from the oil-producing Niger Delta region, won out in the end, but bitterness remained. Many in the north saw Buhari as a chance to return power to their economically marginalised region.
The ex-military ruler, a 69-year-old Muslim, has built a reputation as a fighter of corruption, but his “war against indiscipline” during his regime in the 1980s was also accused of outrageous rights abuses.
