Nigeria: Nigeria's parliamentary election reshaped the country's political landscape yesterday, as voters turned dozens of sitting deputies out of office just five days before a historic presidential poll.
While President Olusegun Obasanjo's ruling party was on course for victory after making surprise gains in the south-west, it also suffered serious setbacks as his main poll rival forged ahead in the north.
While most observers praised Saturday's legislative poll as broadly trouble-free by the standards of Nigeria's bloody history, voting in the south-east was marred by serious outbreaks of violence and attempted fraud.
The elections, Nigeria's first since the end of military rule in 1999 and Africa's biggest ever, were seen as a crucial first test of the country's young democracy ahead of Saturday's presidential election.
"It was a question of the credibility of the image of Africa as a whole and in all it was fairly good," said Abdoulaye Bathily, vice-president of Senegal's National Assembly and head of a team of African Union monitors.
Several incumbent politicians were forced out as Mr Obasanjo's People's Democratic Party (PDP) lost out to Mr Muhammadu Buhari's All Nigeria People's Party in the northern state of Kano while gaining ground in the south-west.
"The results have redrawn the political map of Nigeria," former foreign minister Mr Bolaji Akinyemi, now a professor of political science, said.
While President Obasanjo seemed still to be on course for victory on Saturday, the results will come as a rude shock to many of Nigeria's 36 powerful state governors, some of whom may be ready to cheat to cling to power.
"What this means is that some of the incumbents might get desperate if their analysis after this election is that they are not likely to return to power," said Mr Festus Okoye, head of Nigeria's Transition Monitoring Group.
In a sign of the lengths some leaders might go to cling onto power, the deputy governor of Osun state, Mr Adeleke Adewoyin, was arrested for allegedly smashing ballot boxes, a police spokesman said.
Political scientist Mr Abubakar Sadiq said the deputies who were supporters of incumbent governors were losing out on local issues, and that voters were tired of rulers who did nothing for public services. - (AFP)