Nigerian candidates associate peace pledge and electoral threats

ABUJA, Nigeria – The Nigerian president and his main opponent in Saturday's election renewed their commitment to peace on Wednesday before a vote marked by accusations that alarmed some observers, while some of their supporters maintained inflamed rhetoric.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who is seeking a second term, and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar have pledged to help hold free and fair elections in Africa's most populous country and to refrain from any " incitement to religion "or any ethnic profile.

The latest elections in the country, which has 190 million inhabitants, were marked by deadly violence, even though the 2015 vote was relatively calm. He witnessed the first defeat of an outgoing power and a first democratic transfer of power between parties, thus giving some Nigerians hope that a new era had begun.

"We will vote by party, but in the end, the only real party is Nigeria, our country," Buhari told a crowd of diplomats, civil society members, observers and others.

A few hours later, however, during the president's last demonstration in the capital, Abuja, a speaker held an inflammatory speech, warning that Nigeria had only two choices: the ruling party or "those who want to kill us" ".

Atiku Challenger at the peace pledge ceremony, quoting former President Goodluck Jonathan, said that "my ambition is not worth the blood of a Nigerian".

Conscious of the already tense atmosphere, the chairman of the National Peace Committee urged all presidential candidates, more than 70 of them, to "do nothing to aggravate a bad situation".

A few days before the vote, the problems multiplied.

Gunmen opened fire on Wednesday on a convoy carrying the governor of Borno State, killing at least three people, said a convoy pbadenger to the AP. Boko Haram, Islamist extremists from Nigeria, is suspected of attacking the troubled north-east near Maiduguri.

An election office was set on fire, and more than 4,600 smart card readers are to be used for the vote "destroyed in hell," the Nigerian Electoral Commission said. It was the third fire of this type in the last two weeks.

Several people were crushed on Tuesday in a scramble at a rally of the ruling party in Rivers State, in the south of the country, widely considered a hot spot of electoral violence. A video obtained by the Associated Press showed at least seven bodies lying in the middle of abandoned clothes and shoes.

The pressure of candidates to publicly renew their peace pledge, launched in December, has been resumed in recent days after the governor of Kaduna State declared on television that anyone who came to Nigeria to intervene in the elections "Would return to body bags".

Another crisis followed a statement by the US ambbadador who warned that anyone who incited violence would be held responsible. The ruling party objected, saying that strong political rhetoric was allowed in the United States but that the ambbadador wanted Nigerians to act "in accordance with their vision of well-educated Africans".

The stakes of these elections is a dynamic country of about 190 million people, including more than 84 million registered voters, which is Africa's largest economy and largest oil producer. And yet, the gloomy economy is still recovering from the recession and over-reliance on crude oil exports. High unemployment, corruption and poor infrastructure continue to hinder Nigeria's vast potential.

After the Atiku party accused the authorities of hampering their efforts to hold a final campaign rally in the capital, many supporters gathered Wednesday at the campaign headquarters for what they said. they called a "national day of prayer" on alleged plans to rig elections for Buhari.

"If God can intervene, the rigging mechanism put in place can not be maintained," said Bonaventure Chimee, head of the prayer support group. "The essence is to pray for total victory."

The opposition and election observers have expressed concern over military deployments in part of southeastern Nigeria where separatists are active.

Ez Onyekpere, of the Abuja-based Center for Social Justice, told The Associated Press that deployments could intimidate voters in an area where Buhari is largely unpopular.

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