Nigeria sets election date
2006-05-25 09:28
Abuja - Nigeria will hold general elections between April 07 and April 29 2007, says chairperson of the state-run Independent National Electoral Commission Maurice Iwu in Calabar.
However, he said that the mode of the election was still unclear as the commission was still waiting for parliament to pass the new electoral bill into law.
Iwu said if the parliament failed to pass the new electoral law, which introduced electronic voting for the first time in Nigeria, the commission would conduct the election based on the 2002 Electoral Act stipulating secret balloting.
The announcement by the electoral commission marked another milestone in Nigeria's march toward entrenching democracy.
Obasanjo became president in 1999
A major milestone was the rejection by parliament of a third term bid by President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Obasanjo became president in May 1999 with the return of Nigeria to democracy after 16 years of unbroken military rule.
If his third term agenda had sailed through with the amendment of the country's constitution, he would have gone for a third term of another four years, beginning from May 2007.
Many of Nigeria's political parties had been clamouring for the conduct of election in a manner that made voters to queue behind the posters of their choice candidates for counting.
The ruling Peoples Democratic Party said on Monday that it was waiting for election timetable before holding conventions to choose its candidates for the next election, but assured that the list of its candidates would be ready by August.
- SAPA