NIGERIA: Opposition coalition calls for postponement of Nigeria's presidential election

Nigerian opposition parties call for Saturday's watershed presidential election to be postponed because of irregularities during state polls last weekend. A coalition of 18 Nigerian opposition parties said on Wednesday (April 18) the presidential election on Saturday (April 21) should be postponed because a fair vote was impossible after wholesale rigging in state polls last weekend. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says President Olusegun Obasanjo's People's Democratic Party (PDP) won 26 of 33 states declared so far. The opposition says it is biased in favour of Obasanjo supporters and should be disbanded. Election observers said results in 10 of the 36 states did not reflect the will of the people and should be rejected. Former army ruler Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Atiku Abubakar were among leaders of the opposition coalition who met in Abuja on Wednesday. Pat Utomi, the chairman of the opposition coalition and presidential candidate of Advanced Congress of Democratic (ADC), said that after receiving feedback from leaders of various political parties across the country he thought "it is foolhardy to proceed with taking this process seriously." Asked if the opposition coalition would boycott the presidential polls, he said the word was not appropriate. "The word is not boycott. It is an insistence that this government does not have the credibility to conduct elections. So election should be postponed until this government is out of office," Utomi said. He said the government would be "constitutionally dead" at the end of its term of office on May 29. Obasanjo must stand down in the election after serving two terms but the opposition accuses him of massively manipulating the process to keep his party in power and retain his personal influence. Information Minister Frank Nweke told Reuters the vote, which should usher in the first handover from one civilian president to another since independence from Britain in 1960, would go ahead.

ITN Source | April 18, 2007

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