Subj: Nigeria’s Presidential Election slated for 19 April 2003

Nigeria’s Presidential Election slated for 19 April 2003

Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that the election of the federal parliament will take place on 12 April 2003, to be followed on 19 April by the presidential poll and state governorship elections. The election of regional legislatures will be held on 3 May.

There is much anxiety that these elections could be marked by ethnic and religious bloodshed as religious sensitivities are running high and religion is threatening to play a key role.

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Obed Minchakpu reports to Compass Direct (January 2003) that religious tension is evident at every level of society. Minchakpu quotes Borno state police commissioner Azubuko Udah as saying, “Religious hatred has now become a common feature within our country ‘s communities. Every little misunderstanding is now seen in the light of religion. This has largely contributed to the numerous religious crises that we have witnessed in the country.”

Since the 1999 election that brought Olusegun Obasanjo to power, the nation has been wracked with religious violence and a deepening polarisation along ethnic and religious lines.

Stratfor Global Intelligence notes, “For Nigeria, Obasanjo was the right candidate at the right time in 1999. He was well-respected in international circles and relatively popular domestically for having opposed the brutal dictatorship of Gen. Sani Abacha. Because he is a southern Yoruba with ties to northern elites, Obasanjo also was uniquely capable of reaching across ethnic lines to help narrow the gap between the two halves of the country.”

For decades northern Muslims had ruled Nigeria through a succession of military dictatorships. All that time, Shari’a was never an issue and the secular nature of the Constitution was respected. However, the democratic election in 1999 of a southern Christian to the presidency left the northern Muslim powerbrokers feeling sidelined. It also inflamed their Islamic sensibilities.

Finding themselves disempowered politically, the northern governors reinvented themselves as Islamic religious reformers, using religion as an emotive platform from which they could discredit and destabilise the democratically elected government and garnish attention, power and influence for themselves across Muslim-majority Northern Nigeria. It was only months after the election of Obasanjo that the push for Shari’a in the northern states was on and the government did not have the foresight to curtail it at its inception.

Nigeria, now a divided nation, is facing a Presidential election with strong religious overtones. President Olusegun Obasanjo has been elected as the candidate for the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Major-General Muhammad Buhari has been elected as the candidate for the main opposition party, the All Nigeria’s People Party (ANPP). Olusegun Obasanjo is a Christian from the southwest, and General Buhari is a Muslim from the northwest. General Buhari, an ardent supporter of Sharia, is urging all Muslims to vote for a Muslim.

It has been nineteen years since a civilian administration has organised elections in Nigeria. Previous attempts, in 1966 and 1983, were accompanied by widespread electoral violence that resulted in military intervention. Stratfor Global Intelligence doubts whether today’s ethnically divided Nigeria can hold together without the re-emergence of a military dictatorship.

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The BBC has good coverage of Nigerian election issues. Here are two excellent articles that also contain links to profiles of the main candidates and articles on related issues.

Analysis: Nigeria’s challenging poll. 13 January 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2598981.stm

African media watch. 10 January 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2645477.stm

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If these elections do not succeed it will be a disaster – if they succeed peacefully with rights and freedoms in tact it will be a miracle. It is vital that religious liberty observers monitor the rhetoric in these months leading up to the elections, and that all intercessors pray for God to have his hand on Nigeria at this time.

– Elizabeth Kendal

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