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Nigerian opposition trying to field common presidential candidate
AFP
ABUJA
Petroleumworld.com 04 13 07
Nigeria's divided opposition is trying to field a common presidential candidate in polls starting this week in Africa's most populous nation, a leading aspirant for the top job said Thursday.
"There is going to be a meeting of all the presidential candidates of opposition parties on Tuesday and they are going to discuss the issue," said Muhammadu Buhari, former head of state and leader of the All Nigeria Peoples Party.
Buhari, who led Nigeria between 1984 and 1985 as a military ruler, had convened a meeting in the capital Abuja in a bid to get the opposition to forge an alliance for the April 21 presidential and national assembly polls.
Provincial legislative and governorship elections will be held across the sprawling nation this Saturday.
However, only six of the 23 opposition presidential candidates attended Thursday's meeting, although nine others sent representatives.
Some 61 million voters are eligible to cast their ballot in the elections in what looks set to be the first civilian-to-civilian handover in Africa's biggest oil producer since it gained independence from Britain in 1960.
In 46 years, Nigeria has had almost 30 years of military dictatorships marked by widespread plunder by the rulers.
Elections in the west African country have earlier been marred by violence and fraud.
The European Union meanwhile Thursday said it would deploy more than 150 observers across the country.
But it said it would be staying away from three states -- Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa -- in the oil-rich Delta region where several foreign oil workers have been kidnapped recently amid disputes over the distribution of oil wealth.
The United States called on Nigeria to give poll observers "full and transparent access" to the election process, and dismissed suggestions it was ignoring political bully tactics by the US-allied ruling party.
"We encourage the electoral authorities and government to take all possible measures to enhance public confidence in the elections," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"The United States is a committed supporter of free, fair and open elections in Nigeria," he said.
But McCormack acknowledged that Nigeria was "trying to move beyond its past where the credibility of some of those elections came into doubt among outside observers."
"We have talked to the Nigerians periodically about the importance of having the right kinds of elections," he said, adding that this meant polls that are "free, fair and transparent, not only on election day but also in the run-up to the election."
As the countdown to the elections began, a Paris-based media rights watchdog Thursday denounced the Nigerian authorities for closing a private radio channel and a television station in the economic capital Lagos.
"Elections should be a time when the government takes more care than ever to respect the rule of law," said a statement from Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans Frontieres, RSF).
"There is no justification for the enforced closure of Link FM and GTV, so the measure should be lifted and their personnel should be allowed to return to work," it said.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, a combative ex-general who was re-elected in 2003 in Nigeria's first civilian-run presidential election in 20 years, is stepping down after a second term. Obasanjo had been a military ruler earlier.
AFP 12 2100 GMT 04 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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