KEY POINTS:
The mayhem started as soon as Nigeria's state polls opened.
The first polling station we visited had just been raided. A gang had stolen one book of ballot papers and half-filled another with votes for the candidate of the ruling People's Democratic Party.
At the second, the register was missing and, as we were asking what happened, shots were fired from a passing BMW. Party agents gave chase and got its registration number. They said it was a state government car.
At the third, an angry crowd which had seen one ballot box stolen by PDP activists was setting up a roadblock. A heavily armed police unit was trying to remove it, but the crowd shouted that the police were trying to steal ballot boxes and stuff them.
Back at the first polling station, a crowd of young men were running off with the ballot box. After a chase and a spate of shouting, they returned it. Everyone had voted and they were keeping it for safety, they said. But the election official said they were members of the PDP. Just two out of 286 registered voters had been brave enough to vote.
At the town of Oye, a line of soldiers blocked the road while a silver Toyota with no number plates sped off. We were mobbed by a furious crowd. "No vote here; there has been no vote here," they bawled.
Since the polls opened, thugs from the PDP had been shooting in the air to disperse voters. But now, a crowd gathered around a blue Pajero, pulled the occupants out and began to beat them. Only the intervention of one of the candidates' bodyguards prevented the men being killed.
In another part of town, a furious crowd swirled around a house. Five people were brought out - one a woman - to a deafening roar. Half a dozen ballot boxes had been hidden inside. The crowd went wild, kicking, punching and hitting the men with sticks and whips - only the woman was spared. Battered and bleeding, they were pushed into a car and driven off to be handed over to the police.
In the evening, Maurice Iwo, the commissioner for the Independent National Electoral Commission, said on Nigerian television: "We are very happy with what we have seen so far." And President Olusegun Obasanjo said: "So far so good."
Events in Ekiti state may have been the exception, but they showed how crude the PDP can be when trying to rig an election. The areas that Obasanjo wants to win are Ekiti and the Delta states, Balyelsa and Rivers.
The elections for state governors and senators may be more important for ordinary people than next Sunday's presidential vote. The Governor of Ekiti, a poor, rural state with just two million people a few hours drive from Lagos, receives 19.5 billion naira ($207 million) a year from the Government. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which is investigating 31 of the 36 incumbent governors, has impeached five, including the previous governor of Ekiti, Ayo Fayose. The final straw was the murder of a potential rival last July. The President put Ekiti under a state of emergency.
The state is the most ethnically homogenous in Nigeria; everyone is Yoruba.
The Action Congress (AC) candidate challenging for state governor was Kayode Fayemi, formerly a London-based activist who worked to restore democracy during Nigeria's 16 years of military rule. His campaign cost $5.4 million, and he admits that, in Nigerian politics, "there are things you must do in the short term to achieve something long term". On Sunday, he travelled through the district trying to calm his supporters.
That evening, I went to the centre where the results were to be checked. A power cut had left it in darkness but officials were counting by the pale light of mobile phones. Reports came in from all over the state of ballot box thefts and PDP intimidation of voters. But on the votes counted, Fayemi was clearly in the lead, beating his rival two to one in two wards. The electoral commissioner in charge of the centre, however, was closeted in his office with some 'Big Men' including Obasanjo's adviser on political affairs. The PDP candidate, Olusegun Oni, was declared the winner yesterday.
- INDEPENDENT
