April 16 (Bloomberg) -- Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan headed into today's election in Africa's top oil producer as the firm favorite after the opposition failed to unite behind a single candidate to stand against him.
Voters lined up at polling centers across the country for their opening at 8 a.m. local time, the Independent National Electoral Commission said in an e-mailed statement today.
"The reports we have show that voter turnout is much higher than what we had during last week's election," Jibrin Ibrahim, director of the Abuja-based Center for Democracy and Development, which is monitoring the elections, said by phone today.
Ballot stuffing and under-age voting were reported in some northern states including Benue, Bauchi, Gombe and Kano, while election observers were arrested in the central Plateau and Kwara states, and in the southern Anambra and Delta states, Ibrahim said, citing reports from members of his group.
Nigerians are choosing whether to give power to Jonathan, a 53-year-old Christian from the oil-rich southern Niger River delta region, where an armed insurgency, now largely quiet, cut the nation's crude output by 28 percent from 2006 to 2009. His two main challengers, both Muslim northerners, are former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, 68, and Nuhu Ribadu, the 50- year-old ex-head of the anti-graft agency.
Reduced Majority
"It's an emotional thing for the Niger delta to have one of their own at the top," Anyakwee Nsirimovu, executive director of Port Harcourt-based Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, said by phone yesterday.
While Jonathan's ruling People's Democratic Party saw its majority in the Senate and House of Representatives reduced in last week's legislative elections, it still scored well throughout Africa's most populous nation. To win in the first round, Jonathan must obtain a majority and secure 25 percent of the vote in two-thirds of Nigeria's 36 states. Results from the 120,000 voting stations are due within 48 hours, according to the electoral commission.
While Jonathan's campaign slogan is a "breath of fresh air," his PDP has ruled Nigeria since it emerged from military rule in 1999. There are no real ideological differences between the candidates, said Rotimi Oyekanmi, the chief executive officer of Renaissance Capital West Africa.
Infrastructure Spending
"Instead, there are a number of critical issues. One is the power situation, another is the Niger Delta and then corruption," he said yesterday by phone from Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital. "They all seem to be saying the same things, though saying they'll do better than the other."
Jonathan has pledged to target spending on infrastructure, including power and railways, in a bid to boost employment in a country where more than half of the people live on less than $1 a day, according to the United Nations Development Programme.
"The road map for power, which aims to improve power supply by selling the state-owned power companies to investors, is one critical thing he has done," Oyekanmi said.
Buhari and Ribadu have said that Jonathan has failed to tackle poverty, corruption and violence.
Opinion Poll
Jonathan was leading in the latest public opinion poll conducted by Ipsos for ThisDay, the Lagos-based newspaper reported on April 6. The survey said 62.1 percent of the voters favored Jonathan for today's vote, compared with 23.6 percent for Buhari and 6 percent for Ribadu, with more than 6 percent undecided.
In last week's vote, "the PDP has won across the country, unlike the other parties," Clement Nwankwo, executive director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, said by phone yesterday from Abuja, the capital. "In places it didn't win, it came second. I think that lead will be difficult to overturn by the other parties."
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