Obasanjo warns rival; observers fault poll figures

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday warned his main rival in Saturday's presidential elections against inciting supporters and the security agencies to violence. The warning came as two election observer groups faulted figures released by the electoral commission on the 12 April parliamentary polls. In a letter addressed to Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) and made available to journalists, Obasanjo took exception to allegations of massive rigging and threats of "mass action" against the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) made by the main opposition candidate. Buhari, who appears to be the strongest of 19 candidates challenging Obasanjo in the presidential elections, had accused the PDP of perpetrating large-scale fraud in the legislative polls. He urged his supporters to defend their votes during the presidential ballot. "Let me emphatically urge you not to incite the society and law enforcement agencies," Obasanjo told Buhari in the letter. "I as the elected president have the responsibility for maintaining peace, law and order at any time and in any part of this country, and this transcends party politics. It is a constitutional responsibility I owe to this nation and I intend to use all constitutional means and authority to discharge this responsibility to the full, election time or not." Latest results released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) show the ruling party with a commanding majority in both chambers of the legislature, winning more seats than the 29 other parties combined. Most of the parties have rejected the results, alleging widespread malpractices, including illegal stuffing of ballot boxes and tampering with voting figures. INEC Chairman Abel Guobadia on Thursday dismissed the allegations as "loose statements ... without proof" and urged the aggrieved parties to take their cases to the law courts, which have the power to void results and order fresh elections. He said INEC was taking additional measures to improve security and ensure the integrity of the votes cast in the presidential and governorship elections on Saturday. However, election monitors from two different organisations have cast doubts on the accuracy of both voting figures and results released by INEC. "What our observers have seen are not tallying with what INEC is reporting," Ifeanyi Enwerem of the Justice, Development and Peace Commission told IRIN. With 30,000 monitors, the commission, which is linked to the Catholic Church, has more people monitoring the elections than any other organisation. Enwerem said INEC had announced results in many places where there was no voting at all, such as parts of the oil-rich Niger Delta and southeastern Anambra State. In other places where very few people voted, the electoral body has published results showing turnouts as high as 98 percent. "The election was generally peaceful, but it does not necessarily mean it was fair," he said. The Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI) said in a statement on Thursday that it was worried about problems in the administration of the electoral process and official figures contradicted by observers. "IRI is also increasingly concerned about apparent discrepancies between the voter turnout observed by election monitors and the voting statistics later reported by elections officials," said the statement signed by spokesman Thayer Scott. The elections are a crucial test of democracy in Nigeria since Obasanjo's election in 1999 ended more than 15 years of military rule. No elected government in Nigeria's 42-year history has successfully run elections. On two previous occasions, civilian-organised polls characterised by widespread rigging and violence precipitated military takeovers.