Voters in Nigeria’s politically-volatile state of Anambra go to the polls Saturday to elect a governor in a contest seen as a test run of how next year’s national presidential vote will shape up.
The last presidential vote which brought President Umaru Yar’Adua — now lying stricken in a hospital for more than two months — was marred by widespread rigging and voter intimidation.
Yar’Adua vowed to make better the running of elections in Africa’s most populous country after a court decided to keep him in office regardless of the condemned vote that swung him to power.
“This election is deemed to be very critical towards the electoral reforms that we have been clamouring for in this country,” said Akuro George, leader of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) team of poll observers in Anambra.
“If we are able to get it right in Anambra then it will be testing ground for what is going to happen in the country … but if we don’t get it right it will be an indication that we have not changed our mindset,” said George.
A bill proposing changes to the electoral laws is still in parliament but analysts say Nigeria’s problem is not much about the law, but its application.
“There is nothing wrong with the electoral laws … but everything wrong with the average Nigerian politician and the electoral empire,” said commentator Donald Awoor.
Presidential elections due in April next year should ensure only a second successive democratic handover between civilian rulers in Africa’s most populous country, after a long period of military rule ended a decade ago.
Governors of the 36 Nigeria’s states are powerful as they have a key role in the picking of presidential candidates at party conventions.
Yar’Adua’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) controls all but eight of the 36 states. Anambra is one of those that have been in opposition hands.
The ruling party is however going into the Anambra election divided after the party executive imposed former central bank governor Chukwuma Soludo as its candidate, which caused some party stalwarts to defect to the opposition.
Over 1.8 million voters are eligible to cast ballots at 4,623 polling stations scattered around one of the country’s most densely populated states.
A total of 25 candidates are vying for the post of governor but no clear favorite has emerged among the four frontrunners in the race, including the incumbent Peter Obi, who represents the All Progressives Grand Alliance party.
The vote comes amid growing uncertainty surrounding Yar’Adua’s illness and threats of a renewed oil war after militants abandoned last week a truce because of lack of progress in peace talks in the president’s absence.