WEEKLY APPEAL
Sudan emergency: older people's voices
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Nigeria drafts in troops for oil delta polls
01 Dec 2004 13:42:11 GMT
Source: Reuters
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By Segun Owen WARRI, Nigeria, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Nigeria deployed hundreds of troops on Wednesday to the ethnically-divided oil city of Warri ahead of local government polls on Thursday, amid fears vote rigging in favour of one ethnic group could provoke violence. The poll in three Warri local government areas was postponed in March and again last week because of fears of violence by members of the Ijaw ethnic group, who say they have been deprived of political power by their rivals, the Itsekiri. "The security agencies have been well primed. I don't think there will be trouble, not for now," said James Omo-Agege, chairman of the Delta State Independent Electoral Commission. An uprising by the Ijaw last year temporarily forced multinationals to shut down 40 percent of the OPEC nation's 2.5 million barrel-per-day output and prompted the deployment of thousands of troops to the wetlands around Warri. Ijaw community leaders complained there was no evidence of polls taking place and accused the ruling People's Democractic Party (PDP) of preparing to rig the vote in favour of the Itsekiri. "Up to today we do not even know where the ballot boxes are. There are no signs of elections. The government are manipulating, and the electorate are not even aware of an election," said Samson Mamamu, local chairman of the Ijaw National Congress. Omo-Agege said the list of candidates had been made public, but declined to name any of them. The electoral commission's headquarters in Warri was closed to the public on Wednesday. Soldiers were patrolling the city in open-backed trucks and armoured vehicles. The military task force in charge of security around Warri has said it planned to have a helicopter gunship on routine patrol. The contested chairmanship positions in the three Warri local government areas are normally hotly contested because they give the incumbents access to a slice of Nigerian oil revenue and power over who gets government contracts in the area. Political rivalry between the Ijaw and Itsekiri exploded into violence in 1997 when the state handed the Itsekiri control of the Warri South-West local government area by creating additional electoral wards. Fighting reached a new peak last year in the run-up to general elections, when the Ijaw staged a broad based revolt against the Itsekiri, the government and oil multinationals, sabotaging oil wells and cutting off supply to world markets. The three local governments have been administered by bureaucrats since then. FLAWED DEMOCRACY, THREAT TO OIL The rising political temperature in Warri, in the western side of delta, follows a crisis in the eastern delta in September when a militant Ijaw group threatened to blow up oil facilities in a dispute over oil money and political power. Militant leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari has since withdrawn his threats and a fragile ceasefire holds in the eastern delta. Western diplomats say President Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military ruler, has failed to live up to hopes for clean democratic governance since his 1999 election which ended 15 years of military dictatorship. The U.S. State Department said last year's general elections were "marred by serious irregularities and fraud, including political violence". Nationwide local government elections in March were subject to widespread fraud, according to monitors, and violence which killed at least 100 people across Africa's most populous nation.
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