Delayed vote could see divisions widen Nigeria

A voting card and a metal rod for self-defence are both close at hand in Christopher Obiorah’s tiny bookshop in Kano, but he hopes to use just one of them when Africa’s largest democracy goes to the polls this weekend, one week after a surprise delay.

Four years after one of Nigeria’s most peaceful elections, heated rhetoric in a tight race threatens a return to violence along fault lines as ancient as Kano, the oldest city in West Africa. Northerners versus southerners, farmers against herders, the corrupt savaging the poor.

‘‘This is Nigeria. Anything can happen,’’ Obiorah said, casually mentioning that his family had machetes at home. ‘‘We are ready for them. We are many here. We have done it before.’’

Nigerians have waited impatiently for the election, which was delayed because of logistical ‘‘challenges’’ just hours before polls were set to open last weekend.

The delay was costly in several ways, said Nnamdi Obasi with the International Crisis Group. Faith in the electoral commission was shaken. Fewer people might vote, dispirited or broke after rescheduling their lives to travel to their registered voting location. Monitoring could suffer as ‘‘numerous organisations, particularly Nigerian ones, may be reluctant or unable to do it all over again’’.

President Muhammadu Buhari, an ailing 76-year-old former military dictator, this week threatened death to anyone found disrupting the election, then told Nigerians on Friday they would be able to vote without fear.

Buhari is seeking a second term after widely being seen as failing to deliver on key issues of security, the economy and fighting corruption.

Extremists are making a deadly resurgence. Scores of people were killed last week alone in farmer-herder clashes. The oil-dependent economy is still weak after a recession, with unemployment now over 23 per cent.

Buhari’s main challenger is 72-year-old former vicepresident and billionaire Atiku Abubakar, who is promising to tap his business success to ‘‘Make Nigeria Work Again’’ but has not managed to shake corruption allegations.

Buhari and Abubakar are Muslims from the country’s north. Nigeria’s 190 million people are evenly split between Muslims and Christians, who dominate in the country’s south.

Many Nigerians are underwhelmed by the choice between the two Muslim candidates, who between them have run for president nine times.

The rise of young contenders in a country where the majority of voters are between 18 and 35 has been limited by the high costs of running. Salisu Mubarak Muhammad, a 35-year-old who is running to be Kano state’s governor, said his family had refused to donate to his campaign, seeing it as pointless. Top parties are believed to spend far in excess of campaign limits, and vote-buying is widespread.

Buhari and Abubakar’s parties have sniped at each other over the election delay, which the electoral commission blamed in part on the weather, alleging it was orchestrated to create space for vote-rigging.

But ‘‘this is largely just a colossal mess based on logistics, the massive work that needed to be done’’, said John Tomaszewski, African regional director with the International Republican Institute, one election observer team.