Christian vote seen as key in election to lead Nigeria
Pair of northern Muslims top presidential candidates
YOLA, Nigeria — Ask worshippers at St. Charles Catholic Church what they want most from Nigeria’s presidential election, and the answer is peace.
“We don’t want any more bloodshed in Nigeria,” said Everistus Suburu, vice chairman of the church in the northern state of Kano. “We are tired of (Islamic extremist group) Boko Haram.”
The presidential campaign has been largely free of the religious pressures that marked the 2015 vote when Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim northerner, defeated a Christian president from the south who had grown unpopular over his failure to control Boko Haram.
Now, with the leading candidates both northern Muslims, the Christian vote may be decisive in sweeping the incumbent from power for the second time in as many elections in Africa’s most populous country.
Nigeria’s 190 million people are divided almost equally between Christians mainly in the south and Muslims, like Buhari and his opponent Atiku Abubakar, who dominate in the north.
It’s not certain which of the two Christian voters will support, or if they will vote as a bloc.
In a bit of last-minute drama, the electoral commission decided Saturday, just hours before polls were to open, to postpone the election until Feb. 23. The commission’s chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, cited “very trying circumstances” in logistics for the balloting, including bad weather affecting flights and fires at three commission offices in an apparent attempt
“to sabotage our preparations.”
The delay has deepened the sense of mistrust and frustration some northern Christians feel toward Buhari’s government.
“The major problem we have in this country is that our leaders don’t have the fear of God,” said Murna Samuel, a schoolteacher in Yola, capital of the northern state of Adamawa. “We are in a mess. It’s like they don’t want to do this election.”
Over the years, in a system known as zoning, Nigeria’s presidency has tended to rotate: A Muslim from the north is succeeded by a Christian from the south. This is widely seen as key to holding the country together.
Both Buhari, the incumbent, and Abubakar have Christian running mates, in keeping with tradition. Without legal backing, however, the rotational system essentially relies on the goodwill of the politicians of the day.