Tension Fills Air Ahead of Nigeria Vote

In preparation for today’s nationwide elections, 42-year-old Janet Okorokwo loaded her two teenagers and the family’s belongings into a bus before fleeing this northern Nigerian city for her rural village about a 12-hour drive away.

Hundreds of other residents were on the move as well, fearing that Kaduna, a city sharply divided between Muslims and Christians, could implode when election results are announced.

Kaduna has been consumed by violence before. In November, when a newspaper columnist suggested that the prophet Muhammad would have married one of the visiting contestants in the Miss World beauty pageant, her comment sparked street clashes between Christians and Muslims. The factions doused one another and bystanders with gasoline, then set blazes.

At least 200 people, including Okorokwo’s 7- and 11-year-old sons, were killed. Mobs torched hundreds of houses, leaving 12,000 people homeless.

“I can smell the tension because the streets are too quiet,” said Okorokwo, who earns a living by hawking goods like soap and clocks on the street. “I’m not going to take a chance and lose my other two children.”

As Nigerians cast ballots today for president and the governors of all 36 states, local and international observers will be watching to see if the West African nation can avoid the kind of bloodletting that has claimed about 10,000 Nigerians since 1999 -- when President Olusegun Obasanjo’s election ended 15 years of military rule.

But in the days leading up to today’s vote, few people were willing to bet that the polls would be conducted peacefully. Earlier this week, top federal police officer Inspector General Tafa Balogun went on national television to warn politicians and potential troublemakers alike not to stoke violence.

Many observers agree that the future of Nigeria’s fledgling democracy is at stake in today’s elections. One question constantly asked is: Could Africa’s most populous nation defy history and successfully transfer power from one civilian administration to another?

When voters elected Obasanjo, they had high expectations -- many say too high -- for their democracy. They wanted the new president to provide basic services, such as reliable electricity, water and health care, and to recoup billions in oil money looted by previous, military regimes.

Four year later, Nigerians acknowledge that they are freer but no better off. Their faucets are still dry. Power blackouts can last months and Obasanjo’s promises to fight corruption have been largely unkept.

Recent lines for gasoline, which can stretch for miles, have irked many Nigerians, who are aware that their country is among the world’s largest oil exporters. And according to some estimates, about 70% of the country’s 129 million people live below the poverty line.

Yet despite Nigerians’ suffering and deep poverty, Obasanjo and his People’s Democratic Party, or PDP, remain popular with many voters. In legislative elections last Saturday, the PDP made huge gains, securing majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Now Obasanjo, a military head of state in the late 1970s, is widely favored to beat 19 challengers.

The elections “may not be a referendum on Obasanjo but a rejection of the alternatives that Nigerians face,” said Christopher Fomunyoh, an Africa analyst with the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, which has dozens of election monitors in Nigeria.

Analysts say ethnic, religious and regional divides -- which have caused convulsions across Nigeria -- help to explain much of the support for the ruling party.

In 1999, Obasanjo’s candidacy was largely seen as a move by northern military leaders to reduce resentment of their perceived monopoly on national power. Promoting Obasanjo was also meant to appease his Yoruba ethnic group, which felt cheated in 1993 after the military annulled the free election of kinsman Moshood Abiola.

Obasanjo received heavy support from the north but was shunned by voters in his native Yorubaland, where he was seen as a stooge of the outgoing military elite.

But in the last four years, Nigeria’s political landscape has changed. A dozen states, including Kaduna, in the mainly Muslim north, have introduced Sharia, or Islamic law, against the objections of their Christian minorities.

And while northern support for Obasanjo has waned, Yoruba voters helped the PDP sweep the legislative elections, especially in the southwest.

Across Nigeria, Obasanjo’s main slogan is splashed on billboards: “Continuity will strengthen our democracy.”

“The southwest is becoming an integral part of Nigeria ... and moving into the mainstream of party politics,” the president said in an interview with The Times, flashing a broad smile.

But Obasanjo’s mood turned serious when he was asked about a call by his main rival, Muhammadu Buhari, for “mass action” to prevent ballot-rigging in the voting for president. In Nigeria, “mass action” connotes huge, often violent, demonstrations.

Buhari, whose All Nigeria People’s Party suffered setbacks Saturday, said the elections were rigged and tainted by “greed, disloyalty and dishonesty.” On Wednesday, flanked by leaders of a dozen other parties, he demanded that the elections be repeated in most of the country.

“We would like to emphasize that any repeat of the fraud ... will result in mass action and consequences we cannot foresee,” said Buhari, a former general who deposed an elected head of state in 1983, only to be overthrown himself in a coup in 1985.

Obasanjo said Buhari’s remarks amounted to incitement. He fired off a letter warning Buhari that the president would “use all constitutional means” to maintain law and order.

“He knows me, and when I say this I mean it,” Obasanjo said in the interview. “The consequences [for inciting people] will be whatever the constitution allows.”

Still, in Kaduna and other northern states, Buhari’s words carry weight. On Friday, Muslim leaders implored believers to go out en masse and vote for Buhari, an outspoken defender of Sharia. People should rise up if the polls are being rigged, the religious leaders said.

Hashimu Dahir, a 33-year-old headmaster of a Koranic school, predicted that Obasanjo will “be the cause of any violence” if there is vote tampering today.

“We will come out to protest,” Dahir said. “I’m quite sure there will be violence if polls are rigged.”

Shehu Sani, a Kaduna-based human rights activist who has criticized Muslim politicians in the north for exploiting religious issues, noted that the city’s streets were eerily quiet Friday. He said the conditions for disturbances had already been created.

“This place is going to blow,” said Sani, who identifies himself as a devout Muslim. “And this time it’s going to be worse because it’s also going to be along party lines -- Muslim against Christian but also Muslim against Muslim and Christians against Christians.”