Gunfire heard in cities as Nigerians finally go to the polls

Daura (Nigeria), February 23

Gunfire opened Nigeria’s delayed election day on Saturday as President Muhammadu Buhari seeks a second term in Africa’s most populous nation.

Police said the blasts in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, shortly before polls opened were for “security purposes” in a show of force to deter the Boko Haram extremists that plague the region.

Gunfire also was heard in parts of Port Harcourt in the restive south, where the military presence was said to be heavier than in past elections.

Buhari, among the country’s first voters, said he will be congratulating himself at the end of the election, jovially brushing aside reporters’ questions about whether he would accept a loss to top challenger Atiku Abubakar in a race some observers see as too close to call.

The president, voting in his northern hometown of Daura, jokingly checked the name on his wife’s ballot.

Buhari called the voting process smooth, but in other parts of the country some officials reported concerns with a delayed opening of polls and a heavy security presence that could intimidate some potential voters.

In Delta state in the south, witnesses said electoral officials were still distributing voting materials.

In Yola in the northeast where Abubakar was voting, an election observer said he was surprised to see fewer than 100 people in line at a polling station with more than 760 registered voters.

“I was expecting to see a huge turnout,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to a reporter.

Ibrahim Mustapha, one Yola voter, said he was annoyed he would be late to his polling unit. “Transport is very hard to get,” he said.

Traffic restrictions are in place across the country, which also closed its borders.

The president in a final address to the nation on Friday vowed that the more than 72 million Nigerians who can vote in the election would be able to go to the polls in peace.

But the Boko Haram extremist group, its Islamic State-affiliated offshoot in the northeast and various agitators across the country could have other plans.

Observers said the delay of the election from last week, blamed on logistical challenges, could favor Buhari and the ruling party, with some Nigerians saying they didn’t have the money to travel to their place of registration again.

“I don’t have the zeal, time and resources,” said Patience Okoro in Agbor in the south. “After all, it is not my brother that is contesting. So why will I kill myself or waste my time?” The delay also could hurt the election’s credibility, some said.

“The postponement casts a lingering doubt on the neutrality of (the electoral commission) such that unless Atiku is declared the winner, many will still believe that (the commission) colluded with the government to rig him out,” said Jideofor Adibe, associate professor of political science at Nasarawa State University.

Those who turned out on Saturday, however, dismissed concerns about having to wait.

“The delay, it does not matter, it is for the will of God to take place,” voter Oseni Ukweni said in the capital, Abuja.

“Everybody is excited to be here.” — AP