Violence and apathy for Nigerian vote
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Nigeria held municipal elections marred by violence, accusations of ballot rigging and voter apathy that revealed stiff challenges to democracy in Africa's most populous nation five years after the end of military rule.
Fears of violence and legal disputes prompted officials to cancel voting Saturday in more than 100 of some 800 municipal districts of Africa's most populous nation, where officials were to be elected.
Ruling and opposition party politicians used armed thugs to intimidate voters, said Festus Okoye, chairman of the Transitional Monitoring Group of 5,000 local monitors. The council positions are widely sought after because they control lucrative allocations from Nigeria's state oil revenues.
Before the vote, local election officials -- appointed by Nigeria's 36 state governors -- disqualified some candidates and used "subterfuge and other devious" tactics -- including creating new districts without informing the opposition soon enough to field candidates, Okoye said.
Cases of fraud, violence and lack of voting materials were reported in areas controlled by President Olusegun Obasanjo's ruling party and two main opposition groups, Okoye said.
Abel Guobadia, chairman of the national election commission, said reports of fraud and violence were "nothing to worry about," apart from "one or two areas" he didn't name.
Turnout was unusually light as a result of voter apathy, Okoye said. Results were not expected until Sunday or Monday.
On a deserted highway outside the southern oil city of Warri, an Associated Press reporter saw a gang of young men ripping up several hundred ballot papers that had been thumb-printed in favor of a local opposition candidate. The youths explained they were destroying "fraudulent" ballots.
At a ballot counting center in Warri's Uvwie district, a well-dressed man identifying himself as an agent of the ruling Peoples' Democratic Party bragged he and others had fixed district results in favor of his party.
"We've already written the results. What we're doing now is a mere formality," the man said. He declined to give his name although others identified him as Dafe Okpe, a local ruling party power-broker.
Scattered deadly clashes and assassinations of politicians and election officials preceded Saturday's vote.
Political gangs killed as many as 10 people in a gunfight in Port Harcourt on Friday. The clash came after ruling party thugs there "celebrated" prospective victories they said they planned to "steal," one witness said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Police in a convoy guarding Kano state Gov. Ibrahim Shekarau -- a member of Nigeria's main opposition party -- fought Friday with ruling party protesters who threw rocks and bricks at the governor's car. Several were arrested, including a ruling party member of Nigeria's federal legislature.
An AP reporter saw a mob of voters punching and kicking ruling party official Akilu Indabawa at a voting station Saturday in Kano. Police drove the crowd back, firing guns in the air and striking rioters with rifle butts.
Police arrested 21 people Saturday on charges of illegal possession of weapons and trying to destroy a voting station outside Kano, the state's police commissioner Ganiyu Dawudu told journalists.
New York-based Human Rights Watch warned ahead of Saturday's vote that a "climate of impunity" could kindle further violence.
In some parts of Lagos, where turnout was low, many young men preferred street soccer -- Nigeria's passion -- to voting.
"I can achieve with soccer, (and) one day maybe be professional," said Tony Agbesanwa, who was playing street ball near a voting station. "I don't think I can achieve anything with voting."
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