Party wants court to defer polls

A Nigerian political party has filed a court case to seek deferment of general elections due next month on the grounds the country's electoral commission had yet to fulfill a legal requirement to publish the register of voters, officials said on Tuesday. The National Democratic Party (NDP), one of 30 registered to contest legislative, presidential and governorship polls scheduled for 12 April and 3 May, said it was aggrieved the Independent National Electoral Commission had not published the register 60 days before the elections as required by the electoral law. "There is a need for the court to intervene and adjudicate in the interest of democracy," Habu Fari, NDP chairman, told reporters. "We believe we must conduct our activities within the context of the law, other wise at the end of the day there will be problems," he added. No date had been fixed for the hearing. The electoral commission conducted voter registrations in September 2002 and January 2003 after long delays it blamed on inadequate funding by President Olusegun Obasanjo's government. The list was early this month displayed for correction of errors but a completed version is yet to be published. The case has added to the uncertainties surrounding what would be the first elections in Nigeria since the 1999 vote that ended more than 15 years of military rule. Spiralling violence, including several cases of political assassinations, has raised fears about the integrity of the political process. In 1993, a court case seeking the stoppage of elections provided a pretext for the military government then in power to abort the vote, plunging Nigeria into its worst political crisis since its late 1960s civil war. Late Nigerian military ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha, seized power in the midst of the turmoil, prolonging military rule in Africa's most populous country.