Looming violence clouds presidential election

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Thousands of police officers and soldiers deployed across Nigeria on Friday in a show of force to opposition leaders threatening violence if they believe this weekend's presidential elections are flawed.

Saturday's elections for the presidency and 36 state governorships present the biggest test for Nigeria's struggling democracy since President Olusegun Obasanjo was first elected four years ago, ending 15 years of brutal military dictatorship. He is seeking a second term.

"We are on the edge of an abyss. These elections will decide our fate," presidential contender and longtime human rights campaigner Gani Fawehinmi said. "I only hope our democratic process will survive."

Obasanjo, a former military ruler who transformed himself into a civilian statesman, faces 19 challengers, including three former army generals.

Nigeria never has had a successful democratic transition from one civilian administration to another.

The 1999 elections were overseen by the military. Previous civilian-run votes in 1965 and 1983 -- and another military-run ballot in 1993 -- were overturned in coups.

Troops and police fanned out in armored personnel carriers and on foot to protect election stations and head off potential violence across Africa's most populous nation, especially in the troubled oil-producing Niger Delta, where ethnic and political bloodletting already has killed more than 100 people since March.

Nigerian police inspector-general Tafa Balogun warned his officers would "blast ... any thugs and their sponsors" who try to disrupt the ballot.

Army spokesman Chukwuemeka Onwuamaegbu said, "We are prepared for anything, be it peace or trouble."

Tensions are especially high since the opposition claimed last week's parliamentary elections were marred by vote-rigging. The vote gave Obasanjo's ruling party a majority in both houses of parliament.

Questions have emerged as to the validity of election results in parts of the country where journalists and monitors saw almost no signs of voting.

"Voting conditions were flawed and deficient enough to allow fraud to take place," Thayer Scott, spokesman of the Washington-based International Republican Institute, said Friday.

But Scott stressed that the group's 50-member observer team did not know yet whether the vote was rigged.

Obasanjo's main rival, Muhammadu Buhari, has threatened "mass action" -- a term in Nigeria that generally refers to violent protests -- if the ballot is rigged. As a military officer, Buhari launched a coup in 1983 that toppled Nigeria's previous civilian ruler, Shehu Shagari.

Another presidential candidate, Emeka Ojukwu, a retired army officer who led Biafra rebels in Nigeria's devastating 1967-1970 civil war, urged peaceful demonstrations. But he warned of violence if there was evidence of fraud.

"If (Obasanjo) continues along this line, the events of 1967 to 1970 will be child's play compared to what we will see unleashed," Ojukwu said.

More than 1 million people died in the failed secessionist war.

Oboko Bello, an ethnic Ijaw activist leader in the marshy Niger Delta, said Friday his militants were extending a boycott of last week's legislative vote to the upcoming ballot as well. Ijaw militants say voting districts were shaped to favor rival Itsekiris.

The political process "bears no semblance to democracy and has no relevance to our people," Bello said.

Obasanjo's rule has brought limited improvements in individual and press freedoms. But outbreaks of political, religious and ethnic violence have left more than 10,000 people dead since 1999.

Despite being one of the world's largest oil exporters, Nigeria consistently ranks among its poorest and most corrupt nations.