Allegations that electoral fraud helped Nigeria's ruling party to win a key state governorship contest yesterday have raised fears that the country might be heading for even greater chaos at general elections in 2011.
Election authorities ann-ounced that the People's Democratic party had narrowly won the ballot in Ekiti State in spite of reports of irregularities that many Nigerians consider shocking even by the country's often dismal electoral standards.
Police fired in the air and used teargas to restore order in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, yesterday after scores of supporters of the opposition Action Congress set up burning barricades in protest at the victory of Segun Oni, the PDP candidate.
The conduct of the poll exposed the failure of Umaru Yar'Adua, the president, to deliver on a pledge of implementing electoral reform made after he came to power at general elections in 2007, some of the most flawed in Nigeria's history.
Kayode Fayemi, a veteran human rights activist who contested Ekiti State for the Action Congress, accused the PDP of using any means to hold on to power. "It's really a flagrant abuse of due process and it's a disgrace to our country, Nigeria," he told the Financial Times.
PDP officials countered that Mr Fayemi's party had attempted to rig the results.
The election in Ekiti State was one of a series of reruns ordered by Nigeria's courts following fiascos in many districts during the 2007 elections. But a confluence of factors in Ekiti turned the rerun into the most critical test yet of Nigeria's ability to reverse a spiral of fraud and intimidation.
Ekiti saw some of the worst abuses in 2007, when the ruling party won the governorship in a direct confrontation with the Action Congress. Control of the state is also seen as critical to a wider battle between political "godfathers" for the soul of the southwest, home to Lagos, the commercial capital.
Widespread acts of intimidation forced a postponement of voting in the Oye area of the state during a previous rerun on April 25, with outbreaks of violence reported. Although Tuesday's voting in Oye took place peacefully under a heavy security presence, the low turnout - 2,440 ballots cast by 18,934 registered voters - attested to the tension.
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