| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa Subsaharan |
| Nigerian election a failure, say observers |
| 2007-04-23 |
| Nigeria's election was a failure and must be rerun, local observers said on Sunday, but the government said coup plotters were trying to discredit the poll. The vote on Saturday in Africa's most populous nation was marred by violence, fraud and intimidation. First results on Sunday indicated continued dominance by the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), as was expected. The election was a far cry from the hoped-for display of democracy to mark the first handover from one civilian president to another in a country scarred by decades of military rule. "We are going to call for a rerun of elections. You cannot use the result from half of the country to announce a new president," Innocent Chukwuma, chairperson of biggest local observer group, told Reuters. But the government said coup plotters were trying to annul the election to wreck democracy after failing to blow up electoral headquarters on Saturday with a petrol tanker. The tanker stopped short and failed to explode. The plotters "failed to get the international community to label Nigeria as a failed state and also incite the rank and file of the Nigerian armed forces with the sole aim of scuttling the presidential elections", Information Minister Frank Nweke said in a statement. Government spokesperson Uba Sani accused Senate president Ken Nnamani of wanting to impose an interim government and incite chaos. Nnamani dismissed what he called "trumped-up" charges and said he would never support a coup. Chukwuma, of the Transition Monitoring Group, said the official electoral commission had not been prepared for Saturday's vote. "In many parts of the country elections did not start on time or did not start at all," he said. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 But... but ... Carter said it was legit! I'm so confused. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-04-23 16:48 |
| #2 Nigeria There, fixed it. |
| Posted by: Spot 2007-04-23 08:41 |
| #1 That's OK. I got an eMail from one of the losing candidates asking to help him move money out of the couuntry. |
| Posted by: Jackal 2007-04-23 08:22 |