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Nigerians fear for their lives
16/04/2007 22:18 - (SA)
Abeokuta - A short walk from where Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo voted in state elections, frightened residents describe how thugs loyal to his ruling party threatened voters and stuffed ballot boxes.
The polls last Saturday were supposed to prepare the ground for presidential elections next weekend in Africa's biggest democracy, but even in Obasanjo's hometown - a power base for his People's Democratic Party (PDP) - locals say gangs wielding guns and cutlasses overran voting stations.
Many voters now talk of boycotting Saturday's polls.
"People are scared. If you speak out they come to your house in the night and attack you," said Coker Aderu Oye, clerk at the whitewashed St Peter's Cathedral Church, the oldest in Nigeria.
"What we have now is not democracy," he added. "Obasanjo wants to play kingmaker not just in his own town, but in all the major states."
Obasanjo is barred from contesting the presidential polls after he failed to change Nigeria's constitution to allow him to run for a third term. But many analysts say he wants to dominate any future PDP government.
Saturday's polls were marred by widespread allegations of rigging in many of Nigeria's 36 states, particularly the oil-rich southwestern Niger Delta region.
The will of the people
Angry youths took to the streets in many cities to protest on Monday after electoral authorities said the PDP had won 26 of the 33 states for which results have been received.
A coalition of local observers said results from 10 states did not represent the will of the people.
In Abeokuta, in southwestern Ogun state, there were no protests but disillusioned locals said they would boycott the presidential polls - billed as Nigeria's first fully democratic handover of power since independence from Britain in 1960.
"People will not come out and vote in the next elections ... Obasanjo is an election rigger," said Julius Erukilede, a 23-year-old law student, adding that most locals voted for the opposition ANPP rather than the incumbent PDP governor.
"For a week we have had no water at home. Why would we vote for this governor?"
A giant billboard showing Obasanjo in a traditional Yoruba cap overlooks the road leading to his family home, which is deserted aside from heavily armed police. "You restored Nigeria's pride,? the billboard says.
But on the streets of Abeokuta, praise for him is muted.
"Probably his government has been good because of its reform programme," said Taiwo Adeni, referring to privatisations and a stalled anti-corruption drive, as he flicks through newspapers seated at a roadside shop. "But it is time for him to go."
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