SIXTY million Nigerians vote today in a landmark election for a new president amid escalating religious and ethnic tensions and allegations of widespread vote-rigging.

A string of surprisingly convincing victories for the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the parliamentary poll last week has provoked opposition claims of electoral fraud and threats of mass action if President Obasanjo is returned to power.

A war of words has erupted between government and opposition candidates, with Muhammadu Buhari, the leader of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), Mr Obasanjo’s main rival, calling on supporters to use force to prevent any further attempts to “rig the result”.

Mr Buhari, a former military leader who overthrew the elected civilian Government in 1983, urged his followers to remain at polling stations to “protect the vote”, despite warnings from the state security forces that anyone found loitering at polling stations would be arrested.

Dismissing Mr Buhari’s allegations of electoral fraud as bogus, Mr Obasanjo told him that any attempt to incite violence among the electorate would be swiftly met by the full force of the law: “Those who are planning violence would meet their Waterloo,” he said.

“Let me emphatically urge you not to incite society and the law enforcement agencies,” he told Mr Buhari. “Incitement of the law enforcement agencies and the military against the lawfully constituted authority is both reprehensible and extremely unfortunate.”

He said that he would be prepared to deploy troops to halt any violence.

The dispute between Mr Obasanjo and Mr Buhari has made vigilante-style violence a possibility in an election that is widely seen as a test of Nigeria’s ability to oversee an orderly transfer of power.

With a population of more than 120 million, Nigeria is home to one in five black Africans. An election marred by violence would be a grave setback to Africa’s attempts to turn from a history of political and economic mismanagement to democratic values.

Nigeria has spent 28 of its 43 years since independence from Britain under corrupt and often brutal military rule, and has never managed to oversee an orderly transfer of power from one civilian administration to another.

The chequered history of the country, which is rich in oil, is largely responsible for its stunted economic growth: the average Nigerian is poorer now than at independence four decades ago.

Opposition allegations of widespread vote-rigging have been given a degree of credibility because of the inability of the Independent Nigerian Election Commission to announce the final results of last week’s legislative vote. Violence and fraud in some areas has forced recounts and fresh polls.

Fearing a repetition of last week’s violence, Nigeria’s police chief warned politicians and their “thugs” last night that his 250,000 officers would show no mercy to anyone who disrupted voting in Saturday’s presidential election.

In the northern city of Kano, a frequent flashpoint, the army deployed armoured cars in a show of strength. Authorities clamped a night curfew on Ilorin in central Kwara state.

“Anybody that dares the security forces will be crushed by the might of law enforcement,” Tafa Balogun, the inspector-general of police, said in an eve-of-poll speech.

“We have declared more than ever to blast, wound and technically amputate any thug or thugs and their sponsors,” Mr Balogun thundered. “The rhetoric of the past few days is enough to ignite violence in tomorrow’s elections,” The Guardian newspaper said in its editorial yesterday. Newspapers headlined the bellicose statements of rival politicians around the country.

With 318 of the 360 seats in the National Assembly’s House of Representatives declared so far, the PDP has gained a hefty lead with 187 seats, leaving the ANPP trailing with 92 seats. But while international election monitors have been highly critical of the legislative poll, and the disruption to voting by ethnic violence in the Niger Delta, there is little evidence to suggest vote-rigging on the scale alleged by the ANPP.

Moreover, Mr Buhari’s party has been accused of hypocrisy for ignoring allegations of vote-rigging in the predominantly Muslim states in the north, the ANPP’s stronghold.

There is little doubt that the international observers want to give the Nigerian legislative and presidential polls a clean bill of health, and are prepared to lower international election standards to do so.

“The consequences of not declaring the elections largely free and fair are just too awful to contemplate,” one election observer said.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating